Dale Rosenfeld likes it when life turns upside-down. In fact, the Wailua woman owns four businesses and she says each of them adds a wonky flavor to her week. She’s a wedding coordinator, justice of the peace, horseback riding instructor
Dale Rosenfeld likes it when life turns upside-down. In fact, the Wailua woman owns four businesses and she says each of them adds a wonky flavor to her week.
She’s a wedding coordinator, justice of the peace, horseback riding instructor at Silver Falls Ranch in Kilauea, child-care provider for visitors, and a mistress of mystery.
“The fourth business is a secret,” Rosenfeld said. “We’re just getting the details solidified and I’m not giving out details yet.”
How did you get to Kauai?
I moved here in 1989 from just outside of Princeton, New Jersey. I lived close to Princeton University. I commuted into New York to work advertising. I love being in nature and I was in nature in New Jersey but it was cold a lot and I don’t like the cold so much.
So, I love mountains and I love being in nature and I was really over wearing stockings. That’s the biggest reason I came out here. I love not wearing stockings anymore.
My husband and I, he was a surfer, so we sold our house, didn’t know anybody but we moved out here anyway. We lived on the beach for a while, lived in a shack for a while and then bought five acres in Wailua Homesteads when anybody could still buy land who wasn’t a gazillionaire.
Tell me about the property you bought in Wailua.
We bought the land right next to the reserve so that we could ride right off of my property right onto trails.
And I had my stables there, Espirit De Crops Riding Academy, with 20 horses and I had trail rides and riding lessons and birthday parties. In 2007 and 2008, when the economy went, whew. I went from 10 riders a day for the trail rides and a waiting list, lessons three days a week, birthday parties Saturdays and Sundays to nothing.
Nobody had money, so I started selling horses and said done. It was a few years after that when I came up here, to Silver Falls.
How did you get involved with horses?
I’ve been an avid horseback rider since high school. When I got out of college, I apprenticed at a barn, and learned how to take care of horses. Then I got myself my first horse and learned how much I didn’t know. I was very lucky to live in New Jersey near the United States Equestrian Team headquarters and went there and watched riding lessons, took lessons with top pros, and advanced myself.
Then became a certified instructor, through the American Riding Instructor Certification Program. ARICP. I have certifications in recreational riding, dressage, hunt seat riding, and stock seat — which is western riding.
Tell me about your first horse.
My first horse, I named her Serena, the saddle was more expensive than she was. I bought her for $150 from an auction, where she was slated to be killed. In New Jersey, people buy truckloads of horses, use them for the summer for camps and sell them at auction, and they get slaughtered and sent off. It’s a horrible thing.
She was an unknown age, definitely older than 15, and I rode her for about a year, and she had a lot of bad habits. She was a grade, meaning no specific breed — a mutt in horse world, and she was flea-bitten gray with red dots on her.
But my second horse was the horse of my heart. I bought her as an eight-year-old from someone that had bought her as a brood mare, and she had a lot of bunch of babies, but never been trained. She was a palomino, half Arabian, half Quarter horse and I learned how to teach on her. I competed on her with stock seat, hunt seat, and dressage.
Her name was Shera and I bought her while I was working in Manhattan, learning how to be a good manager and taking classes and working in advertising. When I moved here in ’89, I shipped her here, she was 18 and I couldn’t sell her. She was part of my heart. She lived until she was 38.
So, why did you decide to teach horseback riding?
I’ve always been a teacher. I tutored kids when I was in elementary school and I’ve been teaching ever since. It comes easy.
Do you compete in any horseback events yourself?
I used to do endurance racing in New Jersey and on Kauai. They don’t have those races here anymore, but I did the 25-mile and the 50-mile races. 50-mile races have to be finished in six hours I think, and the 25-mile races have to be finished in four. It’s mostly trotting, because it’s easy for a horse to trot forever and I’m used to that, too.
It’s fun because it’s both of us that have to get in shape. And you have to work together. Sometimes if you’re going up hills you get off the horse and hold onto the horse’s tail. That way the horse gets a break and you’re not on their back, you get some support, and are staying with your horse.
To train for those races, we used to ride right off the property and go for miles. We had a five-mile trail we could also use when I was doing these endurance rides we’d train on Powerline Trail, that’s impassable nowadays, but it goes from Wailua Homesteads to Princeville through the island interior. It’s 14 miles one way, so we could do 28.
Then, of course, if you’re going more miles when you train, the race is easier.
So, you’ve taken your love for horses a step further with weddings?
I’ve been a wedding coordinator since 2009 and primarily I do weddings on the beach. Here, at Silver Falls, I do birthday parties and weddings. I coordinate and officiate and everything and I am the on-site coordinator here at Silver Falls, too.
Weddings on horseback are a very special kind of thing. They’re not for everybody. The people who do them are avid horseback riders.
According to law, in order to do the weddings here, there have to be horses involved, so the people who do those weddings are usually avid horseback riders. We take them for a private trail ride before hand, with a photographer, and then we arrive at the waterfall and have the wedding there.
And you’ve got a nanny business as well?
Yeah, I provide nannies to individuals staying at hotels, resorts, and private homes. It’s a vacation nanny service and it’s wonderful.
A lot of times, especially when people come here for a length of time, they don’t bring their nanny with them. They think that they’re going to want to spend all this time with their kids and they end up wanting some time for themselves, too. So I put them in touch with nannies and watch their kids for them.
What do you do with your free time?
I’m very involved and I believe in giving back to the community. That’s a big part of my belief system and I give back as much as I possibly can.
I’ve created a life here. I’m the vice president and treasurer of the Kauai Wedding Professional Association. I’ve been involved with the Chamber of Commerce, on the Hawaii Ecotourism Association, I’ve been on the Kapaa Business Association, Women in Business, and I can’t think of the rest. I am busy and I make time to watercolor. I make time to go to the beach, and I make to time to hike. I make time to live the well-rounded life.
