How a talented young lady and her caring mentor developed a relationship that would strengthen, and change them both, forever.
Story by Keith McCalmont / Photographed by Matt Waples
On a crisp morning at Shamrock Training Centre in Cambridge, Ontario, 19-year-old Paula McGuire’s smile cuts through the early-morning chill as her breath, visible in short bursts, hangs in the air while she brushes the dirt off of four-year-old pacer Hollywood Ham.
Paula was diagnosed at an early age with a global developmental delay – a term used to describe a condition occurring during the developmental period of a child’s life often compromising intellectual functioning and often accompanied by significant limitations in communication, vocational and academic skills, as well as health.
None of the above is immediately evident in Paula as she ducks in and around the outstretched neck of Hollywood Ham, aka ‘Woody’, attending to the morning routine with the swift, and thorough, dedication of any able-bodied caretaker.
‘Woody’, owned and trained by 23-year-old Stacey Reinsma, is currently working his way back to the races after bowing a tendon while training at Flamboro Downs.
Reinsma, a student of Social Development Studies at the University of Waterloo, and fiancé of WEG announcer Ken Middleton, met Paula through an ad placed by Paula’s parents in an agency in her hometown of Clinton.
“They were looking for a support worker and that’s my field of study. So I jumped on the opportunity because we were living in the same town at the time,’ explains Reinsma, as Paula continues to move around the complacent ‘Woody’. “Paula had no interest in horses, there was nothing on her profile when I looked at it that would send me that direction, but she lived in the same town and that was handy so we met and I took her out to see the horse and she hit it off right from there.”
Paula, a wide smile stretched across her face, is busy harnessing ‘Woody’ for his morning jog. Imminently comfortable with the various straps of leather and equipment, she works industriously at preparing the obliging pacer as Reinsma offers encouragement and gentle reminders.
Occasionally, Paula will drop a line, but it doesn’t frustrate her. Determined, Paula and Reinsma combine to buckle down the harness and attach the horse to the jog cart.
There’s a sense of pride to Paula’s work. Her gaze is intent and her lips purse in concentration as she teams up with Reinsma to apply wraps to ‘Woody’s’ legs.
“Start up high, now work on down,” instructs Reinsma, as her young assistant, hunkered down underneath the good-mannered horse, pulls the wraps just tight enough.
A satisfied smile spreads across Paula’s face when the task is complete and it’s time to take ‘Woody’ out for a jog.
Reinsma and Paula climb onto the jog cart together and make their way to the training track. The racing life seems a natural fit for Paula, despite her young age and health issues, but she’s not one to let life get her down.
Life hasn’t always been so carefree for Paula.
Frail at birth, Paula suffered from a number of allergies, as well as enduring a severe case of chicken pox as an eight-month-old baby that played havoc with her immune system.
“She has asthma due to the fact that she caught pneumonia at a very young age,” explains her mother, Gail McGuire. “One year she got bronchial pneumonia and she got over that and got walking pneumonia. We thought we had that cleared up and then she caught bacterial pneumonia, which goes through the whole bloodstream.”
When Paula reached school age, other issues began to pop up.
“When she was at school, the teachers noticed her fine motor skills were weak,” starts McGuire. “She couldn’t colour for long without her wrists getting sore or swelling. She needs a higher back chair to support her back as she has a touch of scoliosis and she wears orthotics in her shoes to keep her level and straight.”
But that didn’t stop the energetic Paula from going out to play with the other kids. An avid hockey fan, Paula would spend hours playing floor hockey at the church or at home on the driveway with her nieces and nephews.
“We didn’t hold her back from trying, you can’t wrap a kid in cotton batting,” says McGuire. “She’d love to have been a hockey player but she didn’t have the strength.”
Enrolled in a life skills school in Elmira, a teenage Paula was happy, but struggling, to find her place in life. Weakened by her condition, unable to work at most physical tasks for any great length of time and uncertain of her options, Paula’s parents placed the ad for a social worker and fate put them in contact with Reinsma and the world of horse racing. Suddenly, Paula was filled with a sense of purpose.
“She met Stacey and since then it’s really helped Paula with her self esteem, confidence and maturity,” says McGuire. “I’m amazed how much she now knows about horses.”
And that’s not to say that McGuire didn’t believe in her daughter.
“She knows she has these setbacks and she pushes herself to the extreme to try and overcome them,” she says.
By way of example, McGuire shares how Paula, made aware that ‘Woody’ was becoming bored of stall life in the aftermath of his injury, took it upon herself to relieve her tender friend of his frustration.
“When she’s determined to do something, and interested, she researches it all. She has several books on horses, and she’s always on the computer finding out things about horses,” says McGuire. “When Stacey mentioned to Paula that ‘Woody’ was getting bored, she went on the computer and found out that horses like to play with soccer balls and pylons. So she went out and bought him these toys and took them to ‘Woody’ so he’d have something to play with to entertain himself. She’s constantly finding ways to make the horse happy, because when he’s happy, she’s happy.”
Paula’s love of all things equine has spilled over into her schoolwork.
Recently she teamed up with Reinsma to present a report to her class on how to care for a racehorse – not because she needed the marks, or by curriculum, simply because she wanted to share the joy of her newfound knowledge with her classmates.
“It’s made her excel and she’s grown up,” exclaims McGuire.
As well, Paula has been welcomed into a new community. A grown-up community, outside of the classroom she’ll graduate from at the end of this year, where her family hopes she can continue to flourish.
“We go over on race day to Elora and she knows the people that work there,” says McGuire. “When I take her over there, I have no fear, it’s like a family to her. She’s so comfortable with the horses and the people. She’s a natural.”
McGuire believes that Paula’s work with Stacey, be it grooming or paddocking or walking ‘Woody’ after a race, has also taken a positive toll on her daughter’s health.
“She eventually became stronger and being outdoors with the horses helped take her mind off of it, and touch wood, she’s healthier,” says McGuire. “Working with horses has helped her be stronger and a lot happier because she loves them and they love her back.”
Not lost on McGuire is the key role played by Reinsma.
“Stacey has been a wonderful influence on Paula and Paula just idolizes Stacey and we really cherish the friendship that they have,” says McGuire.
Reinsma, mature beyond her 23 years, is adamant about the type of relationship she’s carved out with Paula.
“I look at Paula as a friend. In my eyes, I’m not her support worker,” she says. “I don’t see it like that anymore. That’s how the relationship started, but first and foremost we’re friends.”
Paula volunteered with Reinsma at several Hands On Horses camps this summer working with local youth to promote the sport of harness racing in Ontario and Reinsma sees Paula as something of a pioneer for disabled youth, who can not only benefit from working with horses, but also give back to the community in kind.
Disability is a taboo subject, but one that Reinsma is keen to address.
“There’s an idea around ableism that people with disabilities are consumers of service,” starts Reinsma. “People with disabilities are seen as being consumers of service and takers – you always have to give to them and take care of them. Through the Hands On Horses program, originally I was Paula’s support. But, as she developed with the horses, she came to volunteer at the camp and no longer was I her support. She was there to help me with running the camp. My job is to run the camp and she came to help me. There’s a role reversal there.”
Once a student at the camp, Paula’s horsemanship has grown in leaps and bounds and she regularly assists at youth camps teaching newcomers safety around horses, grooming skills, horse anatomy, feeding and nutrition and even how to harness, jog and race a Standardbred.
“People with disabilities don’t often get the chance to give back,” says Reinsma. “People don’t value their contributions, but Paula, to me and the people around the camp, really contributes. She’s a big help. She helps with everything and she just doesn’t stop.”
Reinsma believes that Paula’s skill set has developed in just the same manner as every other horseperson at the racetrack.
“Disability doesn’t factor into it,” says Reinsma. “When you get someone new coming in to work with horses, you teach them little by little and eventually they learn all the tools and skills to be able to do things on their own.
“When I started out in the business, I wasn’t allowed to jog horses or bandage horses on my own. I cleaned stalls and after I got the hang of that people became more comfortable with what I could do and eventually I could jog and do it all.”
Ultimately, Reinsma let Paula earn her trust from the ground up.
“I keep an eye on her, but not so much supervising,” she says. “If she needs anything I’m always there and she can ask a question. I trust her to walk them after races because she has enough practice and experience with that.”
The majority of Paula’s adventures in horse racing have been positive, and Reinsma is hopeful that Paula’s example will encourage others in the industry to open their minds to inviting other volunteers inside what can sometimes be a closed-off game.
“My recommendation would be to go to any agency that supports individuals with disability and from there present an opportunity,” says Reinsma. “Let them know you have a couple horses. Even if it isn’t someone with a disability, it could be just anyone who needs community service hours.”
Indeed, the healing power of the horse knows no bounds.
“Through the camp program we’ve used horses with bereavement groups and kids who have experienced trauma at different agencies and use horses that way to give kids something to connect to,” says Reinsma. “Kids from all walks of life, you don’t know much about them, but they come in and you can see a difference after a few days. They learn to attach to something and love something bigger than themselves and it gives them a sense of purpose.
“Even just asking someone over once a week and giving them an opportunity to bath or brush a horse is such a huge gift for people and so easy for us to give in this industry. We do it everyday and it means so much to someone who doesn’t get the chance to contribute in that way and experience the healing horses bring.”
In Reinsma’s eyes, Paula is the perfect example of a child in need who has benefitted from connecting with the standardbred community.
“Watching Paula with horses, it’s given her a sense of purpose and from that she’s matured and grown so much over a period of two years,” starts Reinsma. “It’s little things...even what she wants to do for her birthday. A couple years ago, she wanted little toys, more kiddish things, and a year and a half later she’s totally changed, she wants a brush and a pick. It’s this huge niche that she’s found what she wants to do and it’s given her purpose, goals, dreams and ambitions all stemming from working with a horse.”
In a jog cart, in a field in Cambridge on a chilly November morning, with the wind blowing wisps of brown hair around her ears, Paula pursues her life’s dream in tight circles around a half-mile track.
Two years earlier she was in school, her health failing, inching towards an uncertain future. Through opportunity, and her own perseverance, she has flourished.
All the little details – the strong brush of a curry comb, the carrying of water buckets, and mucking out of stalls – have made Paula a physical force.
Her dedication to craft, and sheer determination, have taught her the language of the game and earned her the opportunity to give back to the sport she loves.
Paula’s mother sees a kinship of spirit between her daughter and the animals she loves so much.
“The horse loves to race and loves to be productive and loves to win. They love running. To see a horse running, that’s freedom,” says McGuire. “And I think this is how Paula feels when she is with the horses. It’s freedom. She doesn’t have to prove anything to the other kids at school or any of her peers. She doesn’t have to act like other 19-year-olds, she can just enjoy being herself with the horses.”
She sees in her daughter, something she once saw in her father.
“My own father, years ago, was in the army and trained horses,” offers McGuire, of her dad who fought in both World War I and II with the Royal Canadian Dragoons. “In the first world war, he wasn’t even 16 yet. He lied. He forged his parent’s signature and when his mother found out he joined, she contacted them but he’d already gone overseas by the time they located him. They sent him home and he hung around for a couple months and when he turned 16 he joined the army again. He was in the army for 27 years.
“His love for horses, though Paula never met him, continues. She has that gift to get along with horses and that’s a good thing. Not many people have it, but I’ve seen it in her eyes and how the horses respond to her.”
McGuire’s voice quivers as she comes to an odd realization so many years after the fact.
“Now, I understand how my father loved horses so much,” she says. “I like horses and I’ve rode a horse a few times, but I won’t do what Paula does. It’s just not in me. I’m a little afraid of them because they’re big and overpowering but Paula has no fear. She just has that connection with them and I’m so glad that she does.”
Paula, slightly less emotional about her own accomplishments, is matter of fact about her life’s ambition.
“All I know is I want to work with horses,” says Paula. “It makes me feel happy and I want to learn how to do it right.”
And isn’t that the statement of a horsewoman we can all learn from?
To learn more about the Hands On Horses program, visit http://handsonhorsesprogram.com