Handling a full life

Michael Matter, Special to the Independent

SHE IS

A handler of horses.

WEARING TWO HATS

Marie Keller is known around the Huntington Beach Central Park

Equestrian Center as a horse handler and day-care person.

She finds time to train horses while managing a feed store -- and

seems to accomplish both tasks each day almost simultaneously.

Keller manages Steinberg’s Tack and Feed, the only tack and feed store

at the 25-acre facility.

“I run everything in the store,” Keller said. “I order feed, product

and I sell both in person and over the phone. If I’m not there, we’re not

open.”

LOVE OF HER LIFE

Working with horses has been the realization of a childhood dream for

Keller. Her grandmother had a ranch in Oregon where she was able to spend

six weeks each summer.

“There is a saying among horse people that there is something about

the outside of a horse that touches the inside of a person,” Keller said.

“Horses will take you and carry you to places that you’ve never dreamed

of going.”

CARING FOR FRIENDS

Keller said she is able to be a trainer, while running the feed store,

because the two overlap each other so seamlessly. She is at the

equestrian center seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

“I do my own business around the feed store business,” Keller said.

“Both my daughter and my husband support me and help me whenever I need

it.”

Her time at the feed store is book ended by horse handling. Each day

from 6 to 9:30 a.m. and again from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Keller works with

horses. She is responsible for 30-40 horses at any given time. Her job

duties take her all over the grounds.

“The first thing I do is check for loose horses,” Keller said.

She feeds the horses breakfast, lunch and dinner and offers them a

“play time.” She also cares for them when the weather turns chilly.

“I blanket 30-40 horses each night between November and March and then

remove those blankets each morning,” Keller said. “I hand-walk with a

lead rope those that cannot be turned-out on their own because of injury

or sickness, and I hot-walk others by attaching their lead rope to a

machine that continuously circle walks them for 30 minutes.”

ACCIDENTAL BEGINNINGS

Keller began her career as a horse handler by accident.

“I fell into it when one of the two horses that I kept here was hurt,”

she said. “I started doing little things for other people and it just got

bigger and bigger.”

But Keller could not be happier, she said.

“The people at the equestrian center are so nice,” she said.

“Everything works really well here if we all help each other out.”