Ira Schulman Life Story -

IRA SCHULMAN

Lifetime Achievement Award

Lifetime t n e m e v e i h Ac Award

an m l u h c S a Ir The year was June 26, 1932 when Ira Schulman was born in the

Crown Heights Hospital in Brooklyn New York. Who would think In recognition this man would be such a dynamic and successful person in the horse for saving industry? thousands of ryone e k than ve As ra young boy he dreamt of riding horses and being a cowboy. o t e k lo Thoroughbred uld nt and fo We wohorses ride a hockey stick between his legs around the house g this eve Hevewould in d n e tt a o r the over 65 years! for friendshippretending it was a horse. When Ira was 11, he moved to Forest

and ... their love yearsHills, Queens. He got a job in the local pet shop. The owner became past 50

THE like aRfather, after he lost his own father that same year. The man’s HO SE E C A R name was Bill Mahoney who knew Ira had a love for horses. For D RETIRE T HONORS C Christmas, Bill bought Ira his first horse, Corbie. Wow, what an E PROJ event! It was an award for his hard work that would influence the rest of his life. continued next page 16 with the d r a w A t en Achievem NOVEMBER 2017 Lifetime work with the for his . e s r o bred H

an

m Ira Schul

IRA RECEIVING THE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Presenting the award is Steuart Pittman President of the Retired Racehorse Project, Lexington Kentucy October 14th, 2017 15

Ira Schulman Lifetime

Achievement Award

from the previous page Ira supported Corbie by working at the pet shop, doing leatherwork, and riding horses at the auction on Wednesdays and Thursdays in Brooklyn and New Jersey.

As he got older he would go to the auctions with his riding friends who could drive. They had a truck and a trailer and off they’d go on the weekends to swap and trade horses.

Working at the pet store, Ira learned everything he could about the birds and all kinds of animals. Pets may have been his livelihood, but for the teenager, horses were always in his heart.

It was a real change in lifestyle for a kid in the Queens to have a horse. First, nobody had a horse, and secondly, it required work after school each day. He hitchhiked to the barn to feed and care for his new best friend. Rain or shine, he made the trek and learned first-hand the responsibility of owning a horse. He rode every chance he got.

Little did anyone know that this kid from the city would, in time, learn to ride-like-the-wind as he crisscrossed freeways galloping around the countryside surrounding New York City.

By the time he graduated from high school, Ira was what one might call horse-crazy. Besides his job at the pet store, he had been swapping tack, and riding horses at the auction. So, before finding a real job, he committed to give lessons at a summer camp. When it came Ira’s “Little Tack Shop” time to go, they were short room in the trailer, so other instructors at the summer camp outside New York City, stiffed him, and failed to haul his horse to the site. Not to be deterred, he cowboyed-up and rode his horse cross-city, through the freeway’s embankments and out into the suburbia and then the rural landscape surroundings of the camp.

Along the way, his Uncle had promised to lay him and his horse up for the night. But, when his Aunt saw the horse in the backyard she let out a scream and a holler that in no way was he spending the night. So, his Uncle quietly slipped him twenty-dollars and off into the night he rode with rain beginning to fall.

As they ventured deeper into the darkness, the rain transformed into a storm and he and his horse sought refuge in an open garage at a home along a quiet street. To his surprise, he discovered there a hammock and seized the opportunity to sleep soundly with his horse tied to the swing. That is until he heard a loud shout of the startled homeowner who awakened in the early morning and 16

discovered unexpected guests. A startled Ira jumped up stumbled into the saddle and was gone, leaving behind a bewildered guy in his robe.

A few years later Ira was facing the needs of a young adult, and at 22, was attempting to be a city slicker and work in NYC. The year was 1953 and the job market was tough.

After paying $275 (a fortune back then) to an employment agency, the job they got him was with a company that quickly went under. Undaunted, and unwilling to spend his last few dollars on another job-service, he bought a donkey instead for $50, and rode it into Times Square dressed in a suit and continued riding down 7th Avenue to Macys.

Ira explains, “Figured it would get me some attention. I had called every wire service in town, and the following day there was a quarter page story in the Herald Tribune and other New York papers. It worked! The following day I had a job. Those were tough times and there were few jobs. I had to do something. Opportunity wasn’t just coming my way so I bought a donkey, caused a scene and got a job.” That’s the lesson Ira learned early and applied it often in life - make it happen, don’t wait for opportunity to come your way.

Ira did pretty well at shirt and tie jobs, but it wasn’t for him, and soon his love of horses enticed him into working at running dude-strings. He loved the job. Ira was a natural in the saddle, and could ride just about anything. Yet, horsemanship skills alone were not enough to take Ira where he wanted to go. This was the mid 1950s, a time when people gathered to share ideas and good times. He yearned for the sense of community he witnessed within the horse world, and needed to be part of it. Of course to have horses in the northeast, even back then, was an expensive hobby to indulge in.

To get in the game, Ira found himself at gatherings, entertaining friends with song, and dance and all-around good times. He discovered he fit right in, just being himself, and his circle of friends grew. Soon he was selling horse tack as a way to make an extra buck. Ira had discovered he could buy a headstall for $10 and sell it for $65. That was a profit he had never heard of, or earned in a day working on the dude-string.

In 1959, when he was 22, Ira headed to Texas. The “Yankee”, as he became known, gained a quick reputation as not just a great salesman but for a man with a real good eye for horses. Back then a new horse trailer was $500, and Ira sold a 2-horse Lineville that Sam Miley, the dealer, had been trying to sell for 3 years. The trailer dealer hollered at Ira, “How did you get that fella to buy that trailer? He’s the biggest tight-wad in the county!”

To which Ira replied, “Well, he didn’t have a trailer, and

NOVEMBER 2017

I knew he had to take two horses to North Carolina.” There again was the lesson Ira would apply throughout his life, as he says, “You have to make things happen; you make opportunities happen.”

By 1965 he returned to the east coast and had a little tack store on wheels, which he took to local horse shows. In time it grew, as did his customer list in the horse world. The tack business was good for Ira and he started to make a lot of money. He had financial security for the first time in his life, and enjoyed the nomadic lifestyle of traveling to the shows with his wheeled tack store set-up. There he sold to exhibitors, friends and the horse community across New England and, over time, much of the east coast.

For Ira, if not for his ability to sing and entertain, he would not have been embraced into the social circles to which he would first sell tack and later sell horses. Selling tack was profitable, but when Ira invested in his first horse, just to resell it, he became intrigued.

Ira explains, “Hey, when you’re young, imagine I bought this horse for $500 and sold it right away for $3,000, and they loved the horse. Come-on it was the mid 1960’s you didn’t see money like that.”

It was right about then that he crossed paths with a young man right out of college who wanted to buy and sell horses. His name was David Hopper.

The two started working together buying and selling horses and in 1966, the Longreen Farm was started.

Ira and David developed a working relationship that resulted in selling horses for good money for nearly 30 years. It was a process that worked.

Ira found the horses, and David sold them. A lot of folks in the horse world already knew Ira had a keen eye for horses, and trusted his judgment. The business of buying and selling horses took off. Soon, Ira discovered he would have to choose between his tack business and the horse business.

From a business perspective, Ira recalls, he should have stayed in the tack business. He was consulting for a couple that had a large tack production company, and no heirs. Ira was first in line to inherit the business from his close friends. But it was the 1960s and the lure of the road and the search for great horses was just too much for him to pass up.

For six years he traveled, buying horses and shipping them back to New York where David would sell them. Yet, the lure of the west still lingered in Ira and by 1972, “Yankee” was headed to Arizona to headquarter his operations and search for more horses. Dealing almost exclusively with thoroughbreds, he had become an expert within the breed for recognizing the coming of age. In Arizona, the 1970s was a rootin-tootin good time, and Ira spent more than his fair share of it with drink and friends.

“If it wasn’t for entertaining folks and participating at the shows, acting as auctioneer and stuff like that, I would not have made it. Sure, I had the money to buy horses and yes I’ve had great success picking winners, and a lot of not so good too. Yet, it’s the people you know, people you meet at the shows and events that made my business.” He adds, “The internet has changed all that.

Now people just buy something online. They may not have even seen, much less ridden.”

To find the best horses Ira traveled to auctions and racetracks across North America, and when in Arizona he spent Saturdays at the Pacific Livestock Auction. There he would bid against the killers to buy horses. Back in the 1970s, truckloads of horses appeared and disappeared through PLA. It was a place, like none other, first on Baseline road during the 60s and 70s and then later on the Gila reservation. PLA was a world unto itself one had to enter to understand.

Several of the characters there, every Saturday, bought for the slaughterhouses. The bigger the horse the higher the price per pound they paid.

Ira took great risk weeding out which horses he would snatch from the grasp of the killers.

“Yeah, they had a horse butchering plant called Golden West, out in the west side of the Valley. A certain fella bought everything he could for that plant, he was the type of guy who would pretend to be your friend, but really weren’t.”

He adds, “Now there is no auction, and I have nothing to do on Saturdays. The killer market is still there but now there is no way to see and save those good horses. You can’t compete, raise your hand with a bid and save those horses. It’s a sad outcome, the auction was an opportunity to save a lot of those horses.”

Ira continues, “I specialized in thoroughbreds and sold a countless number, then one day the world changed. The hunter jumper and dressage crowds discovered warmbloods, and it was like turning off the lights and my days of prosperity turned into darkness. It was tough, and then came a man named Andrew Popiel who built a magnificent eventing course and barn called Trojan, just south of Cave Creek. It changed my life.”

While warmbloods had suddenly become vogue in the hunter jumper scene, thoroughbreds still excelled at three-day-eventing. Once again, Ira seized the opportunity as high-end equestrians from across America came to ride and compete at Trojan. The cross-country course Andrew built was outstanding and the giant wooden barn rivaled anything ever seen in Arizona.

It even had a manure system driven by a chain-drive that transported manure out of the building from the back of each spacious stall. Those big wooden stalls were to die for and all the event riders loved Trojan. It flourished for years and then it all came to a horrific end when the Trojan Barn burned lighting the night for miles in a raging blaze that left only ash.

Yet, in it’s day Trojan was Ira’s ace-in-the-hole. “Eventing was for me not just for the horses but the excitement, the challenge. For the Olympics that is the reality. You can take a green horse in eventing, still find the unknown, that special horse, and turn it into a world-class competitor. You can still do that in eventing, that’s the excitement, the opportunity.

“One year, I had 5 thoroughbred horses in the ‘Invitational’ the most prestigious jumper event at the time. Through the years Hopper and myself have some of the best hunter jumper and event horses in the country, and all the best of those horses came off a racetrack” says Ira. “And, Chris Coleman! Where would we be in the hunter jumper world in Arizona without Chris Coleman? He takes greater risks, then reasonable, to put on the shows. The whole thing would collapse without Chris Coleman, he is very important and under appreciated.” His mind, still sharp, Ira’s edgy humor comes thru load and clear that he can tell it like it is.

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from page 17

YOUR INVITED!

Lifetime Achievement Award Today he says “The internet has ruined the tack business. People will go and waste folk’s time at the tack store trying saddles and then go order it online just to save $100, it’s a shame. Jane Hickey, at Greenway Saddlery, has done so much for the horse community over the years. Without support both ways, what is there?”

Like most great horseman his best days in the saddle came to an end with a crash when during a period of personal hardship he galloped a horse, under the influence, through a big jump from the wrong direction. “We ride, we live, we make mistakes. I jumped the horse like a real nut case, it happened.”

Ira’s had a long-list of great horses including Zanger, a Dutch Warmblood (M. Graf Gothard x Kitty) who, ridden by Kathy Adams, earned the 1987 USET Horse of the Year Level 2 Award.

That was accomplished after winning everything on the west coast dressage circuit two years in a row. Then Zanger went on to the Pan American Games.

His horses were in many championships and won prizes. Ira’s home is draped with ribbons and adorned with trophies, amongst the silver trays and bronzes all depicting a time and a place where he won-it-all, or almost.

“I’ve had a great ride and the people, the horses I’ve known, and the tales that we tell when we still speak on the phone or meet up are about the good times.”

Ira had just returned to the ranch from Lexington, Kentucky, where his friends and admirers awarded him the lifetime achievement award he so honorably deserves.

“It was unexpected, who knew, and I’m honored the Retired Race Horse Project folks felt I was deserving of such an honor. To be recognized by such a group is something I will always cherish.” concludes Ira.

Zanger 1987 USET Horse of the Year 5 Times

PARTY NIGHT

IRA SCHULMAN

Thomas Edison 2012 Thoroughbred Grand Prix Hosre of the Year He was 11th at the Olympic Trails

Lifetime Achievement Award Celebration

WEDNESDAY NOV. 15TH EVENING

Upbeat and a twinkle in his eye he walks the ranch, where kids are playing with horses while a favorite baby he raised, now ready for training, stands quietly in the round pen. His house always had an open door policy, and these days are no different. Friends have been stopping by, or calling and trading old stories, with hugs and kisses.

Editors note -- If you want to know Ira and Janice Kruglick at the ranch anything – go to Ira Schulman. He has been here for all of us he never quits! He’s encouraging, caring, Ira at his Turf We would like to thank everyone kind and generous, he has a big for attending this event and for Paradise Office! heart. That’s Ira Schulman. He has their love and friendship over the friends in every discipline, breed, and past 50 years... occupation related to the horse.

THE He has always found a place for the horse, the many years of placing RETIRED RACEHORSE them with new homes; some going as PROJECT HONORS broodmares, some eventing, horse showing, hunter jumpers, polo ponies, trail, chuck-wagon horses, with the dressage, reining, team penning and any outlet to find a good home. He Lifetime Achievement Award would always tell the people what for his work with the was wrong with the horse, perhaps a Thoroughbred Horse. little crooked in the front, or pigeon toed, no big deal.

Ira Schulman 6407 E. Cactus Rd. Scottsdale, AZ 85254 - 602-999-1463

Ira Schulman

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NOVEMBER 2017