Cyclone Gabrielle horse tragedy: Stable Hearts owner moving to the Gold Coast as attempts to restart business hit hurdles

Michelle Skafer has made the difficult decision to close Stable Hearts. Photo / Paul Taylor

Michelle Skafer’s journey of grief is taking her to the Gold Coast.

Skafer’s Pākōwhai clinical mental health and wellness education centre - Stable Hearts - was washed away by Cyclone Gabrielle, taking its team of 11 horses with it.

The psychotherapist and horse trainer tried to re-establish her business at Pakipaki, but now accepts her time in Hawke’s Bay is over.

Skafer hasn’t sufficient funds or strength to buy and purpose-build the makeshift property she’s rented in recent months so, amid great personal sadness, will close Stable Hearts in March.

It’s not been an easy decision, but one that’s been on her mind ever since the cyclone.

“My automatic thought, once I realised the horses had passed and everything was gone, was, ‘Well, that’s it’,” Skafer said.

And then the phone started ringing. And ringing.

People had horses and saddles and urged her to keep going.

“I thought, ‘How amazing would it be to show children that we can come through these terrible tragedies and what that looks like and what that takes?’”

Seventy-six per cent of Stable Hearts’ revenue is from Government contracts that support Skafer’s Equine-Assisted Growth and Learning programmes for troubled and vulnerable children.

Stable Hearts started in 2012, and there are children who’ve been under Skafer’s tutelage for years.

She points to a memorial where the names of the 11 dead horses are written.

“We’re still grieving. Those are our horses, and the kids bring flowers and it’s still really sad.”

The death of the horses and leaving behind Stable Hearts’ clients are topics Skafer struggles to talk about.

“I was taught [through her training in social sciences] what the process of grief looks like, and that I could say, ‘Today I can’t cope, my heart’s thumping, I’m crying, I can’t talk to anybody’,” Skafer said.

“And that’s okay. I’m just going to go into a place of acceptance about that and tomorrow’s going to be different.

“I don’t think you ever get over grief, because grief’s not linear.

“But what does happen is those days of grief or particular passages of grief start to spread out, so your really sad day doesn’t come quite so often.

“But, when it comes, it’s so important to allow it and to be with it.”

Stable Hearts owner Michelle Skafer with Mr D. Photo / Paul Taylor

Skafer sought funds under the North Island Weather Event Loan Scheme to keep Stable Hearts running and build the necessary covered arena, tack room and stables to stay in business.

She was declined, on the basis that Stable Hearts neither had the assets - which were swept away in February’s flood - nor the income to secure and then service the loan required to replace the old Pākōwhai facilities like-for-like.

Skafer accepts that and will instead reunite with her sons, grandchildren and wider family in Australia.

A niece has already suggested Skafer, and some horses, could augment her drug and alcohol addiction business on the Gold Coast.

“I really love my work and, whether I’ve got little wooden horses in a room doing internal family systems - which is another modality of my work - or whether I’m lucky enough to find a horse or two, I will continue my work,” said Skafer.

Hamish Bidwell joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2022 and works out of the Hastings newsroom.