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Campus News - October 15, 2001 |
Development dude doesn't horse around
By Steve Carr
For
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 dont sit in my office very long. Im either in the lab checking
on what kind of information has entered the system or making sure the server
is up and running.
However, thats 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 didnt 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 Albuquerques 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.
Its 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.
Ill 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 thats the truth.
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University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico USA Copyright ©1998 The University of New Mexico. Comments to: paaffair@unm.edu |
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