Cindy Hancock’s volunteer experience with Galway Downs spans 25 years and the complete evolution of the facility.
As a volunteer with the California Dressage Society San Diego Chapter, Cindy remembers coming out to Galway a week before their shows to pick rocks out of the footing. “We had these big white buckets and filled them up!” This is back when the dressage rings were where the soccer fields are now.
Cindy’s husband Terry is a relative newbie – he started jump judging at Galway about 9 months ago.
Both consider the venue to be a focal point of their family’s life, from the rock-picking days to the dramatically different landscape of today’s Galway Downs.
An Unscared Scribe
As a volunteer scribe, Cindy has gone from terror over making a mistake or being assigned to a “mean” judge to loving the role and excelling in it.
The turning point was a scribing clinic organized by Carol Tice, the CDS Chapter president at the time. “We learned what the judges wanted – I learned I needed to improve my handwriting! – and that judges were usually not the scary people we thought they were.” Since that weekend training session several years ago, Cindy has come to consider scribing “a very fun position.”
Cindy loves volunteering so much she occasionally causes Terry to complain “that you’re never home.” To which she had the perfect response: “Why don’t you come out and volunteer, too?”
Which he did. Terry is a regular cross-country jump judge who enjoys a front-row seat to the action, being outdoors and a part of Galway’s famously nice volunteer community. With horse dad and husband credentials, Terry was a quick study. He’s typically assigned multiple jumps and is comfortable handling the video recording when needed.
He’ll stick with jump judging. “I don’t understand dressage,” Terry laughs. “I do understand when somebody goes over a fence correctly and I appreciate the athleticism involved.”
Terry works in the reverse mortgage business during the week and is happy to spend many weekends at Galway Downs.
Providing myopulse and accuscope therapy for horses throughout Temecula and the surrounding areas, Cindy often sees the many horses she’s helped during her volunteer shifts. “The industry has been a real blessing for me,” Cindy shares of the community’s people and horses.
Horses At the Heart of Family Life
A Rhode Island native, Cindy is a horse lifer who competed in the equitation division back East. After moving to California, family life kept her out of the saddle for long stretches. She kept her connection to horses, though, helping their two daughters ride and building her now 25-year career helping horses. After several years working mainly with massage, Cindy currently focuses on myopulse and accuscope therapy for her equine clients.
The Hancock girls, Megan and Katelyn, enjoyed mostly recreational riding, before being drawn into dance and softball, respectively. Growing up with horses is “amazing,” says Cindy. “We’ve had two horses in our family (one of whom passed on) and they were and are both very much part of our household.”
Megan graduated from Azusa Pacific University and now runs a veterinary clinic in Seattle. Katelyn recently graduated from Long Beach State with a master’s degree in food science.
The family’s current horse is the now 20-year-old Thoroughbred, Closing Statement, aka “Chip.” After a track career that included time training at Galway Downs, he became a Hunter Derby horse in training with Noelle Roberts. Chip migrated to dressage at the age of 13. He loved the new discipline and competed all the way up to Prix St. Georges.
He’s now semi-retired and boarded at nearby Galway Farms (formerly Special T Thoroughbreds) in the care of trainer Nathan Allan Williams Bonner. Movement restrictions in one hand prompted Cindy to switch to western, where she can hold the reins in one hand. Western dressage may be where she excels given her background.
Before Ken and Tina Smith bought Galway Downs in 2010, the equestrian facility was often on the brink of being plowed under for development. As Temecula residents all those years, “my heart sank every time we heard that,” Cindy remembers.
Today’s reality is happily very different. “What Ken and (event organizer) Robert Kellerhouse have done is outstanding,” Cindy says. “All the changes have been beautiful and good.”
Along with volunteering, Cindy and Terry love introducing new people to the venue and the sport. They bring friends out to watch competitions – especially the Grand Prix jumping events staged during the Nilforushan Equisport Events hunter/jumper shows. “It’s exciting,” Terry notes. “If the community knew more about Galway Downs, they would really appreciate what’s going on here.”
