Campus News - October 15, 2001

Development dude doesn't horse around

By Steve Carr

Gary EssenpreisFor Gary Essenpreis, staying busy is a way of life.

A programmer/analyst II, Essenpreis toils in the Development Office. His day starts off with some 10-15 messages from systems users looking for some type of help.

“A lot of the job is responding to the telephone. You get in in the morning and your red light is on and something has gone wrong for people,” Essenpreis said. “Support is more than 50 percent of my job.”

“I don’t sit in my office very long. I’m either in the lab checking on what kind of information has entered the system or making sure the server is up and running.”

However, that’s just one part of a typical day in Essenpreis’ life.

Long before he shows up at the Development Office, Essenpreis is busy mucking stalls at his horse breeding facility in south Belen.

“Soaring Winds Farms,” is another of Essenpreis’ jobs and has blossomed into a profitable venture.

For the past 11 years, Essenpreis has been breeding thoroughbreds in New Mexico. The animal world, and in particular the horse world, has always been in his blood. Essenpreis’ journey into the horse breeding kingdom came young. He grew up on a dairy farm in Manitowoc, Wis., where there were also horses.

Essenpreis went to college at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, N.J., where he obtained a degree in business administration with a minor in computer science. He stayed in New Jersey for 18 years before moving to New Mexico in January,1990, where he met a horse trainer and eventual business partner, Dave Paterson.

“Dave had a really good horse, but didn’t have the funding to put the horse in high stakes races,” said Essenpreis. “So I bought part ownership and we started racing the horse.”

Soon thereafter, they bought three mares for breeding purposes and moved a trailer to Albuquerque’s South Valley where their first breeding facility was basically an empty, two-barn, two-parcel piece of land.

One of the stallions was Eteelya, the son of 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, the only thoroughbred in history to capture the Triple Crown with an unbeaten record. After several years in the South Valley, Essenpreis moved the farm to Belen.

“It’s a nice facility with all the barns in place, a nice passive solar house, tool rooms, tack rooms and an additional 15 acres next door where alfalfa grows,” he said.

They currently have 12 horses at the farm including four mares, two stallions and several yearlings.

They also dabble in the racing aspect of the horse business with two of their horses coming up to training and racing age. Most are sold to clients who invest in breaking and training them for racing.

“After a day in the Development Office, I go home and play with the yearlings. I get to keep tabs on them and watch them grow and develop. In 2000, we had the three-year-old filly of the year in New Mexico.

“I’ll always be in a two realm world,” said Essenpreis. “If I did just one and one only, then I would become bored with the routine. I like to be busy and that’s the truth.”

The University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico USA
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