Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti helped spark a passion in the young rider.
PITTSTOWN - Since the age of 8, Stepha Martynuk has had a love affair with horses and opera. It started when the great opera tenor, Luciano Pavarotti, gave her a birthday present of a huge German Trakehner, which she needed a ladder to climb aboard.
Stepha Martynuk and Rage. (Photo courtesy of Martynuk family)On Saturday, Martynuk's dream of owning and operating an equestrian horse barn will become of reality when she opens a new show barn on 200 acres in Pittstown. The barn is named "Carnegie Hill Equestrian," after the part of Manhattan where she was born.
Martynuk, 26, graduated from Centenary College with a degree in Equine
Studies. She is an experienced barn manager and veterinarian technician.
Upon graduation, the college presented Martynuk with a huge $40,000 jumper by the name of JR. She was the only one in the equine school able to ride him.
"Since my childhood in Manhattan, it was always horses," she said. "My mothertook me to the Carousel in Central Park and I insisted on the biggest horse. The great Luciano Pavarotti gave me a gift or a German Trakehner and my father presented me with a pure bred Egyptian Arab by the name of "Rage."
"How else was all this going to end up?"
The open house will run from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Carnegie Hill Equestrian Barn, located at 25 Goose Island Road.
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Martynuk said her father's gift of "Rage" was a life-changing experience.
"It's the greatest thing my dad ever did for me," she said. "It changed the course of my life."
Martynuk is seeking to marry horses and opera with her barn, giving it an upscale feeling of sophistication and charm. Though she likes opera, her taste in music isn't limited to it. Her iPod runs the gamut from Frank Sinatra to country to "top ten trash," as she puts it.
Nonetheless, Martynuk's roots are in opera. Her dad, George Martynuk, owns an opera singer agency in New York City, where many of his singers appear at the Metropolitan Opera and all over the world. He worked with Pavarotti for years.
Her mother, Rosemary Musoleno, is a soprano singer in her husband's agency.
"I think Stepha found in Pittstown the perfect facility," said George Martynuk.
Dave Hutchinson may be reached at dhutchinson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DHutch_SL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.