306 | AR ABIAN HORSE TIMES

T HE U N S IN K A B L E

Jamie Grayby Mary Kirkman

Jamie with Sweet Caroline SKF, 2012 U.S. National H/A Mare Stock/Hunter 7 & Over Champion (Legacy Of Fame x Jackie Monasis).

Volume 46, No. 6 | 307

elling Jamie Gray’s story, it’s difficult not to skew too far into the realm of “Isn’t this heartwarming (or sweet or

inspiring)?” It is all of those things, but Gray herself is the furthest one from focusing on them. She is aware that she got dealt a lousy blow in life and that she possesses unusual strength and fortitude, but her first thought is that she is fortunate. If she says anything about how she lives today, it is that she gets to do what she wants to most: train Arabian horses. That she does it successfully at about every level from safe trail mounts to open and amateur contenders at the U.S. Nationals is evidence of a unique spirit that far outweighs her no-bigger-than-a-minute frame.

Now in her mid-30s, Gray offers an impressive background. She grew up on her family’s farm, her youth packed with 4-H activities, “hundreds” of horse shows, endless lessons and an intense study of judging horses. When she graduated from high school, dreaming of becoming an Arabian horse trainer, she hired on with a succession of the breed’s marquee names for more experience, including Cathy Vincent, Mary Trowbridge, Gordon Potts, Tom Scott, Liz Bentley, Tommy Garland and Jim Stachowski.

It was when she was in her early 20s that the first dark cloud appeared. She suffered a strep infection so tenacious that a test at Johns Hopkins turned into a month-long stay. The infection had resulted in kidney failure; she was next door to death. Fortunately, her older sister Jody was a donor match and a transplant was possible, but unfortunately, the new lease on life expired a year and a half later. It was dialysis or nothing.

“People think it’s pretty awful,” she nods, “but it made me feel so much better that I was thankful I could go there.”

For those who haven’t dealt with it, dialysis, roughly, is a process that does the job the kidneys would do, which is remove waste and excess water from the blood and stabilize certain vital chemicals. In Jamie’s case, it is accomplished via an IV drip into a catheter.

That necessitated a big change in her plans. She couldn’t go back to apprenticing, but she could embark on the next step of what she and Jody had had in mind from the beginning, and that was to continue—and grow—the Gray family’s Sultana Stables.

If you ask her about it—What the heck? How did you get through it?—she’ll answer, not making too much of it nor too little, with a mix of professional observation (“Working for all those people gave me the most exposure to what I did and didn’t want in my farm”) and medical experience (“Dialysis isn’t so bad; you’re just in a recliner and you can watch TV, go on the internet, whatever …”). What she doesn’t say is that her treatments come at the end of long days because she wants to keep mornings and afternoons free to work horses. That means getting home well after 10 three evenings a week, on days that begin at normal horsemen’s hours, i.e., the crack of dawn.

But it has kept her dream alive—over the years, even thriving.

THE UNSINKABLE JAMIE GRAY

It was when she was in her

early 20s that the first dark

cloud appeared. She suffered

a strep infection so tenacious

that a test at Johns Hopkins

turned into a month-long stay.

The infection had resulted in

kidney failure; she was next

door to death.

308 | AR ABIAN HORSE TIMES

THE HORSES AND THE HORSEWOMAN: SULTANA STABLESAs the Sultana Stables website will tell you, Jamie Gray has had state, regional and national champions in hunter, western, English, halter and equitation, and she’s worked with Quarter Horses, Paints, warmbloods and Morgans. You learn something from all of them, she says, but her heart is in Arabians—always has been, all the way back to when she was a child and her parents, schoolteachers Gary and Ruth Ann Gray, fell in love with the breed. The name of their farm, which dates to the 1960s, refers to the desert horses: “Sultana” is a term for the sultan’s wife and a tribute to Ruth Ann.

Gary Gray died prematurely in 1992, when Jamie was 13, Jody had just graduated from high school, and youngest sister Jennifer was 10. They were all avid horsewomen, and running the horse operation with their mother helped them through the loss. “My girls are the strings that kept my heart together,” Ruth Ann Gray says today.

Then as now, the family effort worked. Over the transitional years—when Jody became a schoolteacher, running the lesson program in the evening and on weekends, Jamie trained, built her resume and came home, and Jennifer managed the farm, married and had children—the business strengthened its reputation

The Gray Family: Gary, Ruth Ann, Jody, Jamie and Jennifer.

Volume 46, No. 6 | 309

THE UNSINKABLE JAMIE GRAY

in the Mid-Atlantic. In 2005, the Grays purchased land in Greenwood, Del., 30 miles south of Dover, and set up the property that is home to Sultana Stables today.

Through that time, Jamie Gray steadily crafted a record that proved not only that she was a survivor, but that she was a gifted horsewoman as well. Her list of regional champions in park, western, hunter and halter grew, and then extended to the national level. In 2012, she led the Legacy of Fame daughter Sweet Caroline SKF to the U.S. National Championship in Half-Arabian Mares Stock/Hunter 7 & Over and the reserve in 4 & Over overall, and watched the mare’s owner, Jim Witzal, go top ten with her in the AAOTH championship. Her current star is the Half-Arabian gelding Cant Spot Me, who was named 2015 U.S. National Top Ten in the very competitive Half-Arabian Park Championship.

Now, the barn is full at 22 horses. “Of course, we’d like to add stalls and grow,” Jamie smiles. “We have 10 to 12 horses in full training, and a couple of young ones will be broke next spring. A couple of lesson horses do the local shows and keep the lesson program going—that’s 10 to 15 lessons a week, with more in the summer when Jody is off from teaching. And we do summer camps.

“We stand an Arabian stallion and a Welsh stallion, which has brought in a little different group of people, and we have two Quarter Horses in training to show, so it keeps us on the road and into a little bit of everything.”

What is their biggest asset? The way they approach what they do. “I try to make the program fit what the horse and rider are looking for,” she says. “We’re not a factory. Some people just pleasure ride or trail ride on the weekend or in the summer, and then there are those showing to the national level.”

The mix of pleasure and show riders has been beneficial, she has found. “We promote all of our owners to enjoy their horses,” she says. “The show horses have an off-season, and we do some trail even with them. At the same time, pleasure riders who don’t show get a big kick out of watching the others compete. It’s very supportive.

“The fundamentals of good pleasure horses are similar in all the breeds,” she adds. “Just a few of the finishing touches are going to be different when they get in the show ring. There are slight differences in the riding too, but all in all, a good rider can probably hop on any of those horses and get the job done.”

That f lexibility applies equally to her horses. “When I was growing up, we had a horse who was bred to be an English horse,” she recalls. “Both parents were park horses—but he turned out to be a champion western horse. Sometimes you see that. Each horse has it own way to be trained.”

On occasion that results in having to tell owners that a horse might not be suited to what the person wants. “She is very honest,” Ruth Ann Gray says. “She will not ‘BS’ a customer to show a horse at a level the horse shouldn’t be competing at, even if it would mean more money.”

At present, with a nonstop schedule, the Sultana Stables team is regularly knocking off regional titles and increasingly turning to national shows. Jamie Gray knows what it takes to be successful in top competition, because she’s done it since her childhood, but she does not discount the importance of their role in developing a solid contingent at the local and regional levels.

Jamie Gray steadily crafted

a record that proved not

only that she was a survivor,

but that she was a gifted

horsewoman as well.

310 | AR ABIAN HORSE TIMES

“The middle bracket sometimes goes unnoticed,” she says, “but it’s the beginning of everything we do in the show business. You have to have it to go on to anything else.”

MAKING “CHALLENGING” ROUTINEUnfortunately, it wasn’t as if once Jamie Gray nailed her dialysis, life suddenly returned to smooth sailing. It didn’t. In addition to her kidney problems, she also endured two bouts with thyroid cancer. As she had with her kidney situation, she went to Johns Hopkins, and once again, the hospital came through—although a three hour surgery turned into a seven hour marathon. “The surgeon said, ‘This is a young woman,’” Ruth Ann remembers. “‘I’m not leaving here till we’ve got it all!’”

“It’s exciting to have worked

hard to get to the show ring,

to get the placings you hoped

for, and it’s such a sense

of accomplishment to have

gotten there. The excitement

of competing gets you, and

you crave more of it. Even

with the long hours and hard

work, it’s worth it.”

A young Jamie on Luv.

Volume 46, No. 6 | 311

Once again, Jamie rebounded. But that, her mother says, is typical. “When I went to pick her up after her kidney transplant, the doctor said, ‘You can resume your normal activities in a couple of weeks,’ and Jamie had this big smile on her face. I turned to the doctor and said, ‘Do you know what she does?’ Jamie was saying, ‘Mom! Be quiet!’” Ruth Ann shakes her head. “She went back to work right away.”

Or there was the day Jamie had the dialysis catheter inserted. Though minor, it required surgery, but in Gray parlance, it rated only a “So what?” Jenn picked her up from the procedure, they met Jody in Virginia at a horse show, and they were showing horses the next day.

Now, she just deals with what it takes to train and show horses. When she goes on the road to haul horses or compete at shows, she books her dialyses at centers across the country and wedges treatments into her schedule. “I think I’m pretty lucky,” she shrugs. “Some days I’m more tired, and I have to watch being around people with, say, colds because I get sick more easily, but on the whole I live a pretty normal life. And I get to ride horses and go to horse shows.”

Actually, she amends, she can do it all because of dialysis and family. “Having family and the farm is the only way I can. We all do it together—we can look at each other and know what is going on in each other’s heads—and if I need to take a day or two, it’s not like everything stops. My sister Jody can pick up some of the training, and she already does all the lessons.”

Not only that, but Jenn works at the farm during the day, watching the overall management and preparing horses for Jamie’s training. Her husband, Daniel Grant, oversees farm maintenance (in addition to his non-equine career), and their three children are budding equestrians, the third generation in the family, which delights their grandmother. Ruth Ann, who still teaches, is in charge of the business aspect of the operation and shows as an amateur. “I take lessons from Jamie,” she reports, “and we laugh because she’s like a little drill sergeant when it comes to the horses!” All of the Gray women own records that include regional and national titles.

“I feel incredibly blessed that I have been able to walk this walk with them,” Ruth Ann says. “The three of them are a great team.”

On a quiet evening, Jamie is asked why she does it—despite her health, pursues a career that can be physically and emotionally punishing.

She ref lects for a moment. “It’s an extreme rush of excitement,” she says, although she’s clearly not an adrenaline junkie. It’s more than that. “It’s exciting to have worked hard to get to the show ring, to get the placings you hoped for, and it’s such a sense of accomplishment to have gotten there. The excitement of competing gets you, and you crave more of it. Even with the long hours and hard work, it’s worth it.”

Like most horse trainers, Jamie dreams of the highest honors—and she’s getting there. But like most genuinely happy people, she focuses on each day as it comes, each show ring, each prize. She may not have as many choices in life as she once had, but she has the one she wants. “It’s the Arabian horse,” she says. “Being involved with it every day is an incredible job.” ■

THE UNSINKABLE JAMIE GRAY

Jen and Jamie Gray.