Feature Writing (Long-Form, Unpublished)

Life on This Farm is Kind of Laid Back and She Likes It That Way

You can tell this twenty-room Georgian Colonial with its white clapboard and wood shingle roof is going to be beautiful when it’s finished. Up a steep staircase is the third floor, a wide open room with a low ceiling. It runs the full length of the house. This will be a playroom for Stephen, Ms. Wiederhorn’s son, who turned two this past July, and his sibling, a baby, Petra and her husband Peter, are expecting in the spring. From the dormer windows, you can see clear down to the lower riding ring, with jumps in place for practice tomorrow morning. You can take in a broad view of this twenty-one-acre farm: the small cottage the Wiederhorns are living in until the main house is ready; the renovated white barn, trimmed in hunter-green; and four dogs playing nearby.

You get the feeling you’ve stepped into a storybook or maybe a dream. Even the name is whimsical – “Toad Hollow Farm” – like something out of Wind in the Willows. But it is real. It’s what Ms. Wiederhorn has always wanted, and she’s followed her dream to get here.

At thirty-six, Ms. Wiederhorn is youthful, athletic and slim, and while five-foot-seven, she looks tiny next to Joker, the seventeen-hand Belgian Warmblood gelding she halters up and leads out from the barn. With her blond shoulder length hair, and high cheekbones on her attractive, unlined face, she looks more Nordic than her Croatian/English heritage. Dressed in a pale blue Southhampton sweatshirt, an old pair of faded jeans, black mudboots up to her knees, and a weathered barn jacket, she is ready to get dirty. She is relaxed and happy. There’s nowhere else she’d rather be.

“All my life I have wanted to live on a farm,” says Ms. Wiederhorn, keeping an eye on Joker as he chews on grass and cavorts in the fenced-in field. “I never had an opportunity to do that. I love all kinds of animals, but mostly dogs and horses.” Unlike the long-time horse folk in this intimate community of 5,000, nestled deep in Westchester county’s horse country, she did not ride as a child and did not grow up around horses.

Ms. Wiederhorn was born in Newhall, England and when she was two emigrated with her Croatian father and English mother to Saskatoon, Canada. They moved to Ottawa where she spent her childhood and received much of her formal schooling. The family traveled extensively, often back to Europe – by the time she was twelve, she had been to Turkey and Iran three times. They summered in France and vacationed in Florida. College, too, was a multi-national experience. She attended two universities in Ottawa, studied French in Aix-en-Provence, France, and completed a second degree in communications at the University of Southern California. Finally, she moved east, winding up in New York, and with a work visa in hand, spent six years at a public relations firm in Manhattan. Eventually, she won the immigration lottery and became a legal alien and permanent resident of the United States.

Getting on a Horse

“Later in my life, in my mid-twenties,” Ms. Wiederhorn says, “I finally had an opportunity to get involved with horses – probably about the same time I was becoming extremely disillusioned with the dating scene in Manhattan.” She laughs at this. “And I got on a horse and took a lesson.” She interrupts her story with a calming “hoah, hoah, hoah,” as Joker gallops toward the fence we are sitting on and whinnies loudly. “Hoah, hoah, hoah, Joker, relax,” she says, and continues with her tale without missing a beat. “I got on a horse and loved it and haven’t really looked back since then.”

Like many adult riders, she started with weekend lessons on school horses at a riding club in Connecticut, where a friend, Annaliese Masten-Tapia rode. Ms. Masten-Tapia, 38, a vice president for Chase Manhattan Bank, who started riding when she was six, says Ms. Wiederhorn’s dedication to riding has evolved to become “one of the most important things in her life.”

“Above all, the animal comes first,” Ms. Masten-Tapia says from her office in Manhattan. “Petra has a better perspective on having the horse come first than most adult riders. Most would throw money at a problem, rather than be understanding for the horse. If someone told her something wouldn’t be good for the horse, she wouldn’t do it,” Ms. Masten-Tapia says. “Kindness and putting the horse first is paramount.”

After the weekends riding in Connecticut and midweek riding at the Claremont stables in the heart of New York City – a very dangerous place to ride horses, Ms. Wiederhorn bought a horse of her own, which she kept in Connecticut. She eventually moved her horse to the Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Tarrytown, N.Y. It was a fortuitous change, for it was there she met her husband, Peter, and her trainer, Pam Freeley.

Like his wife, Mr. Wiederhorn, 51, got on a horse for the first time as an adult, when he was 29, and has been riding ever since. Six-feet tall, trim and handsome, with a boyish face and straight brown hair, he owns a successful business licensing trademarks. Would he have pursued the competitive side of riding if he hadn’t met Petra? “No,” he says, “I probably wouldn’t have gone as far. I probably would still be at my apartment in New York City.” He adds thoughtfully, “now we’re up here.”

He is happy. He’s no longer a city guy, he agrees, content with the simple country life they are carving out for their family, fifty miles from the city. He speaks proudly of the special way Ms. Widerhorn views the animals. “She understands animals,” he says. “She knows what they think. She’s usually right. She understands the dynamics between animals. You really have to be born with that. Hers is an instinct.”

National Competitions

The Wiederhorns both ride in national events, competing in a division called the Adult Amateurs, which is divided by age categories and A, B, and C levels of difficulty. They compete as either show-hunters or show-jumpers at the A show level and go to smaller shows to practice.

“When you’re showing horses, it’s so difficult,” says Ms. Wiederhorn. “Because it’s not just you. It’s you and your horse. It’s finding that perfect wining combination and then it’s working through problems with both horse and rider.” And she adds, “keeping both of you healthy as athletes. Horses are prone to so many different kinds of sports-related injuries, especially with the jumping.” Ms. Wiederhorn has been competing for the past six years. She rides six days a week, jumping usually two to three times a week. She and her husband go to a show at least once a month, twice a month in the summer.

“I never wanted to compete,” Ms. Wiederhorn says. “My trainer told me I had to compete.” She laughs. “I sort of got thrown into it because that’s the aim to riding – to really test yourself and test yourself against your peers. From my trainer’s standpoint, there’s no reward without going to the shows.” She adds,” Once I started winning, all of a sudden it became fun and I became more interested and I met my husband competing. So it kind of became a way of life.”

“She definitely had a competitive attitude. She was determined,” says Pam Freely, the Wiederhorns’ trainer and the Riding Pro at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club Stables. “Those are two things that are very important when you’re competing.”

Fulfilling a Dream

“From the beginning she always had a love of horses. It was her dream to have her horses at home and to watch them from the window when she eats breakfast. And she’s fulfilled her dream,” Ms. Freely says. “I believe she’s turning into a great horsewoman. I’m very proud of her,” she adds.

On the mantle in the cottage are the blue ribbons. Also, some red ones, some white. Ms. Wiederhorn has been champion ten times, reserve champion another ten times. There are framed photographs of Petra jumping over a fence on her horse, Sly, a seventeen-hand registered American Thoroughbred, and Peter astride Joker. Both riders are in formal attire: cotton shirts with high collars, wool jackets, britches and leather boots, black helmets, and gloves. “You know, if you don’t love it,” Ms Wiederhorn says, “you certainly wouldn’t do it. Because it’s grueling at times and it’s not particularly glamorous.”

Horses run the show around here and it’s time for Joker to return to the barn. On the way up the hill she says pensively, “I’m in my element.” She pats Joker lovingly and settles the horse in his stall. In the opposite stall, Sly beckons her for a nuzzle.

The Wiederhorns have five horses altogether, three of them are competing horses. There’s also an eleven-week-old foal they plan to show when it’s older, and a pony. In addition, there are the four dogs, including Max the German Shepherd, Scout, a rare American-bred Shinook, Cassey, a rambunctious Jack Russell Terrier, and Lucky, a Moroccan terrier (actually, a mongrel they picked up while traveling in Morocco). Two kittens and two parrots complete the menagerie.

It’s feeding time on the farm, around six in the evening. Two-year-old Stephen, a fiery redhead with huge dark eyes and an impish smile just like his mother, is dressed in a tiny shearling jacket. He has been playing by himself at a mound of dirt with miniature bulldozers much like the construction equipment on the property. “I don’t know how to describe it,” Ms. Wiederhorn says as she mucks the horses’ stalls in the barn and give them fresh hay and wood shavings. “There’s a peacefulness about being around animals and especially horses that I just don’t get from anything else. I can’t even imagine being without them. I love it here.”

Stephen feeds carrots to the horses. The dogs play and roughhouse with each other, running through the barn building up their appetite before supper. It’s mayhem, but no one seems to mind.