The monster-sized garbage truck was headed straight for the horse I was riding down busy Columbus Avenue, at the height of evening rush hour on New York City’s Upper West Side. Gears grinding loudly, the vehicle kept chugging toward us as I maneuvered my horse as close as possible to the parked cars along the curb in an attempt to avoid a truck-horse-human collision.
The perpetually rearing wooden horse still stares out the enormous picture window oblivious to the constant bustle of New York City, just as he’s done since 1912. All around him, the world has changed. The once plentiful shops offering equestrian accouterments to clients with names like Rockefeller and Kennedy have disappeared, leaving Manhattan Saddlery as the sole surviving tack shop in the borough.
It was 8:45 p.m. on a Thursday evening. It was dark, wet and cold outside. I had 24 hours until the chili cook-off fundraiser I’d been planning for the Area II Young Riders, and the anxiety was setting in, as it always does before any function I plan.
I was doing my best to balance my time between my full-time job at Sinead Halpin Eventing, my part-time job at Prestige Saddles, my commitment to Young Riders, my part-time job teaching at River Edge Farm, and my personal commitment to fitness.
Cart And Pony By Kathryn Capley
Kathryn Capley specializes in sculptures that range in scale from tabletop to life-sized. She’s a full member of the American Academy of Equine Art, and her work can be found in private and corporate collections throughout the country.
Capley, a graduate of Illinois State University, said that she tries to “depict horses caught in an instant.”
John Martin Seabrook, a successful businessman, sportsman and reviver of coaching, died on Feb. 11. He was 91.
Born in Bridgeton, N.J., Mr. Seabrook grew up on Seabrook Farms, which would become one of the largest industrialized farms in the world. He graduated from Princeton University (N.J.) in 1939 and went on to become the president of Seabrook Farms in 1954.
Shirley “Cosy” Noyes Lathrop, owner of Longleaf Pine Farm in Southern Pines, N.C., died on March 2. She was 89.
Mrs. Lathrop was a horsewoman from the beginning of her life, as her father, Jansen Noyes, raised the original “warmblood” horses at his farm in Geneseo, N.Y., from the 1920s to 1960s. She switched from showing to eventing in the 1960s and was also the MFH of the Green Mountain Hounds in Charlotte, Vt.
Pin Oak By Melissa Kohout
Artist Melissa Kohout grew up in the ranch and farming country of West Texas. Her love of horses started early, and when she wasn’t riding horses she was putting pencil to paper and creating them.
Gabor Francia-Kiss, West Suffield, Conn., a two-time member of the Hungarian Olympic eventing team, died suddenly on Jan. 26. He was 74.
Mr. Francia-Kiss was born in Budapest, Hungary, where he lived until 1957. He fought in the Hungarian Revolution and escaped communist rule in Hungary through Austria, traveling to the United States through Camp Kilmer in New Jersey. He attended Colorado State University before settling in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.
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