A Day In The Life - Ginny Ignatowski

(January 22, 2006) — Virginia Ignatowski stands in the rain and hoses off a pile of hay to rid it of any asthma-inducing dust. Wading through ankle-deep mud, she divides it up, plunks it in a pen and starts shoveling manure.

"You'll have to excuse me," she says. "I see one more pile out there."

This is high noon in backyard horse country, where any number of "horse people," as Ignatowski calls them, may well have spent their lunch hours as she just has: watching what goes in their horses and removing what has come out.

The wide-open landscape lends itself to such activities, and Ignatowski needs both hands to count the number of people she knows in Chili and neighboring areas who keep horses in their back yards — and that's not counting several horse farms, arenas and stables. It's what drove Ignatowski to buy property here.

Ignatowski, whose Ballantyne Road house is immediately recognizable by the white horse fencing that surrounds it, not only moved here, she and her husband moved a barn here. It used to belong to a horse outfit in Spencerport before it closed.

Relocating the barn was cheaper than building their own, she says. The horse fencing is used, too; it came from a horse farm that became a housing development.

"We put it together on a shoestring," Ignatowski says.

At the moment, the Ignatowskis have two horses — reddish-colored brothers, each with white markings, named Cowboy Callahan, whom they call Cal, and Northern Two Step, who's called Walter.

"That's enough," Ignatowski says, though the barn has the capacity for five. "They're a ton of work."

Caring for them is practically full-time work for Ignatowski, a former computer analyst for Blue Cross Blue Shield who now serves as a town councilwoman and is a mother of three.

She has to feed the horses four times a day, ride them, talk to them, clean their stalls and lay down fresh shavings. Though her daughter, Trisha, 12, often rides them, her husband and two other children aren't nearly as involved with her "guys" as she is.

"If I was sick, I'd still be out here," she says.

"Sick, injured ..."

She was similarly smitten as a girl in Arcade, Wyoming County. While other children were sleeping in, Ignatowski was tending to horses.

Like any little girl, Ignatowski dreamed of owning a pony, and her interest grew after reading the Black Stallion books. But her family couldn't afford it. Few people around her could; she remembers riding her boyfriend's horse, using baling twine over the halter for reins.

But when she turned 12, her grandmother granted her wish and bought her a horse of her own.

She kept it in a 12-foot by 12-foot shed.

Over time, she had five horses and gained considerable knowledge about horses in general, mostly through 4-H activities. She spent countless hours with them and even did her schoolwork while propped up on their backs.

"The butt ends make a pretty good bookstand," she says.

She's just as attentive to her horses today and chooses to keep them on her five acres at home, as opposed to boarding them, because it's more affordable and more satisfying.

By having them in her backyard, Ignatowski can be sure how they're faring, keep track of what they're eating and, she says, "I can count the number of poops."

It's still an expensive hobby. Ignatowski has bills for grain, shavings, veterinarians and farriers. And having horses constricts her mobility. She can't easily go on vacation, for example.

"But," she says, "when you see them out to pasture — or in here, with their fuzzy faces and their noses — and you listen to them eat, it's worth it.

"I think my parents were hoping once I had boys in my life I would give up on the horses," she says. "I guess that didn't happen."