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Show TT The Park Record D Section C Thursday, November 1 6, 1 995 D Page C7 Treasure Mountain Stables owner Veronica Benton harnesses a dream by JENNIFER TOOMER Record staff writer Dreams do come true. "1 can't remember a time when 1 didn't put myself to sleep dreaming about horses," says 30-year-old Veronica Benton. Today, horses are her business. She owns and operates Treasure Mountain Stables, which has a 25-stall 25-stall barn, an indoor arena and plenty plen-ty of open space for practice, all in her own back yard off Old Ranch Road. Once she could only dream of having a horse; now she owns three and can board up to 30. She trains, -teaches others to ride and compete, and cares for them around the clock. And they love Benton. It's obvious obvi-ous in the way they hold their heads out of their stalls, awaiting her pats, kisses and pep talks. "It makes me feel wanted," she laughs. But realizing the dream did not come easy for Benton. Although she was bom with a sixth sense for horses' hors-es' character and movement, it was getting one that posed a problem. "My parents never had money," she said. Park City was different back then there were no "mega-houses," "mega-houses," no second homes and very few people of the upper-middle class, she says so at age 10, she babysat to earn enough money to have a horse of her own. She always wanted to learn and train her horse to jump, but couldn't come up with the extra cash on top of the $500 she spent annually on her horse's care. And at the time, it made no difference. dif-ference. "1 was happy just to have one," she says. She would use horseback riding to explore Park City trails "I know them like the back of my hand," she says and as a release from the everyday world. As she got older, Veronica got a job at Park City Ski Area, where she met her husband Mitch. And when the young couple moved to Los Angeles to "get started," start-ed," she switched her sights from the country to corporate America. She moved her horse to Idaho. 4 1 iin-iifnn- -' tirih n mm r iiimijiiii.---I photo by Jennifer Toomer Veronica Benton, owner of Treasure Mountain Stables, poses with "dream horse" Maverick, a 3-year old thoroughbred thor-oughbred she discovered at Wyoming Downs. if you have... back pain neck pain headaches call me i fr Dr. Adam Drapkin ...end of story. Discover Chiropractic Health Center 1781 Sidewinder Dr. Park City 655-8306 i S5 3 i ; ,; jit 'sf-v-r,- ... You caq have a guett room! Even if you don't hov the room, j I ACCEPT STANDARD BEDDING j CAbinCT WALL bCDS THAT SSduiwiih 3 screws Twin, full, or queen sizes, one hand operation. Uses 17" depth of wall space & only true mattress length. She got a job as a marketing research executive, and Mitch obtained a journeyman's license and worked as a plumber. "Bui; after nine months, I started having horse withdrawals," she says. Luc kily, Veronica Was saved by a friend who had five horses. "Oh, twist my arm!" recalls Veronica of when she was asked to take one of them. She ended up with a horse named Snoopy, whom she uses to train beginning riders to this day. "Snoopy was my sanity ... my solace and my country away from Park City." She spent as much time as she could with Snoopy, and took up riding rid-ing lessons and learned to jump. Nevertheless, the concrete jungle wore on Veronica. After six years of city life, the couple returned to the country. It was then that Veronica was determined to harness her dream. "Horses are a luxury item for some, but a necessity for my sanity," she says. "They're my psychotherapist." psychothera-pist." Upon her return to Park City, she and her husband looked for property that could house horses. They found Treasure Mountain Stables. "At first, Mitch and I saw it, looked at each other and said, 'No way,'" she says. The barn and house needed "a lot of work": remodeling, painting and retexturiJng. And since the y had just finished remodeling and relandscaping their Los Angeles home, they weren't so sure they were up to it. But after further discussion, and realizing their alternative was a home in Salt Lake City, they decided decid-ed it was worth it. "We were buying a lifestyle and a business rather than a house," Veronica said. "The base was good; it just needed a little TLC." And a lot of money that they thought they had. Mitch, who had planned to start his own plumbing business, discovered discov-ered his journeyman's license was not valid in Utah. The couple had not yet sold their Los Angeles home, and were making two house payments pay-ments at the same time. To top it all off, Veronica's bam, in which she offered stall space for $250 a month, was only half full. "I don't know how we did it," Veronica recalls. "You just juggle. r'w Km r , .1'-; "v f. w- f- V" h" v 1 '4 - j , ..... . i i. , , ' I III 'I m fl IK? W44m AwMMk21L. v. i a l hi v .l- nw m. it:. . mi i fcfciSaXrf- A -AM ... Ukil-.A.l .....,f- . .. . .3 . ...i-.. . yy - Itir V Veronica Benton and her course at Golden Spike in You have to ... it's scary, but we just didn't think about it." But business soon gained momentum. Mitch got his business off the ground and Veronica gained a clientele for stall space, training and riding lessons, for which she charges $20 to $25 each. "When I was a kid, dealing with horses was a release." she says. "I just had fun. Now that I do it as a job, I have to switch my mindset into making it my business since that's what it is. It is less of an outlet when it's your business." But she wouldn't trade it for anything. any-thing. Sometimes she sets aside a few moments for herself, but it often involves horses. She attends out-of-state clinics taught by the "big pros," such as dressage gold-medalist Carol La Veil. She rides her horses on Park City trails in order to "unwind." And she is finishing up remodeling her 25-stall bam. And if she plans a vacation, it's not for more than five days at a time. "It's like having 25 kids," she says. Besides, between sun-up to sun-down care for the horses, she has about 15 students she has to juggle jug-gle into the schedule. 6-year-old horse CJ practice Ogden. "Veronica is the best trainer I've ever had in my seven years of riding," rid-ing," said 13-year-old Ursula Hummel, student at Treasure Mountain Middle School. She adds that her teacher of one year "doesn't just tell you" to do certain things, she will explain the hows and the whys, which makes it easier to learn. "I'm left brained," Benton says, which helps her to analyze movement move-ment of the horse. She uses the logic when teaching her students "to feel and become one with the horse." which she says is the most fundamental funda-mental of lessons. And although Hummel has placed third and up in every competition, compe-tition, the Olympic dreamer has picked up Benton's purism. "We don't just concentrate on winning, but knowing the horses better," she says. In fact, winning is so irrelevant to Veronica that she didn't begin to compete until 1992. She first entered an Idaho combination combi-nation training event, in which a rider and horse are judged in a three categories: stadium (patterned jumps), cross country (an outdoor jumping course) and dressage (a choreographed routine set to music to show off the horse's training and jumps on a cross-country concentration). She never expected to ribbon, let alone finish fifth. She has entered several competitions since but not for the ribbon or the recognition. "There's nothing like the feeling of galloping on a cross-country course and coming off with a clear round," she said. And she loves dressage, dres-sage, because that's when she is at her keenest concentration with her horse, CJ. Although she says she can't remember all her awards, she has earned quite a few. But you'll probably never see any of them in her house, barn or arena except for the black and gold second-place ribbon casually hung on the corner of a kitchen cupboard. "That's because 1 just got it." she says coyly. It won't be long before it hangs with the others, stashed away in the closet of her home office where only she and her husband Mitch go. "I've never been a person to say 'See me!'" she says, characterizing with her chin pulled in and chest puffed out. 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