'Horse of a lifetime' fulfills her dreams
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Barbara Halpern rides Moto at BarGee Farms in Indiana Township. -
Barbara Halpern and Moto were winners at the Sewickley Hunt Horse Show in May.
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As a child, Barbara Halpern would ride three or four buses from her native Providence, R.I., to take a riding lesson. Then, when she got home she didn't want to wash her hands because "I wanted to savor the aroma of horse on my hands."
As a young woman, she went on to forge a career doing horse-related public relations that offered occasional equine side benefits -- such as riding beautiful gray Arabians under the lights of the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden to promote a horse giveaway by her client Courvoisier.
And then, after she co-founded and was running the former Hartwood Show Jumping Festival in Hampton, people loaned her horses to ride in the amateur equitation classes on the flat. Six years in a row she won. "People thought it was fixed!" she joked.
But the itch was never scratched.
"I always desperately wanted a horse," said Ms. Halpern of Shadyside. Not just any horse, but one with whom she could compete in big amateur shows.
Finally, at age 61 and after two other horses failed to work out, she's got one in Moto, an 18-year-old gray Dutch Warmblood. They've earned blue ribbons in every show they've gone to, competing over 3-foot fences in the adult amateur division.
Ms. Halpern's first horse was a thoroughbred mare whom her two brothers bought for her as a wedding present more than 30 years ago. She showed her about five times, but Wedding Whim was not able to do all the maneuvers. The horse died a year and a half later from a lesion on her spine.
Decades passed. Finally, seven years ago, Ms. Halpern leased and then bought a "fun" horse. But Kashtan, a Swedish Warmblood, was a little too feisty on the ground, and he didn't have the classic skills to do well in anything but small local shows.
Still, Ms. Halpern didn't give up.
"I wanted a nice old campaigner," Ms. Halpern said. "I was 60. I thought, 'If I'm not going to do it now, when am I going to do it?' "
She mentioned that she needed a "new horse" to her friend, Paul Valliere, a dealer, who warned her it might take a year to find the right one.
First Published August 9, 2010 12:00 am
