GUELPH — After being put on a horse “before I could walk,” Gayle Ecker, who grew up in Exeter, said she always had a love of horses which turned into a career, with her recent promotion to the director of Equine Guelph at the University of Guelph.

While growing up in Exeter, Ecker said her family was always involved in horse shows on weekends and she knew she wanted to have something to do with horses, “but at a young age, I couldn’t appreciate where I would end up.”

After attending the University of Western Ontario for kinesiology, Ecker got a teaching degree and taught at South Huron District High School for a couple of years in the early 1980s.

Deciding that she needed to develop another career, Ecker got a job at a Toronto YMCA marketing department selling fitness memberships before taking a position at Humber College teaching horse courses in the continuing education program.

“It was a neat way to combine my teaching background with my love of horses.”

Her interests continued to combine when director Russ Willoughby offered her a position at the Equine Research Centre.

Willoughby felt her background of science and exercise would be a good fit for training horses for the exercise physiology program.

“I’ve always been interested in the science of exercise so I had an opportunity to get started with what was then called the Equine Research Centre,” said Ecker.

As part of her work at the centre, Ecker was part of the 1996 ‘On to Atlanta’ research team prior to the Olympic Games.

“We were looking at the food and electrolyte balance of endurance and event horses and heat stress events, in order to keep horses safe during the high temperatures at the Atlanta Games.”

Ecker said the research addressed how horses could be acclimatized to different climates, and compared it to human events which sees competitors train for three weeks before the event under the same conditions.

“We didn’t have any information on it at the time,” said Ecker.

“No one had done that and we were one of the first groups to look at preparing a horse to compete in heat and humidity.”

Along with taking her master’s degree on fluid and electrolytes in horses at the university, Ecker helped develop an equine Gatorade, ‘Perform ‘n Win,’ which led to opportunities to work with Canadian horse endurance teams around the world, including France, Spain and Dubai for the World Endurance Games.

“I loved the experience,” said Ecker, who was also invited to a conference in Australia on equine exercise where she presented one of her papers.

With endurance competitions going for 100 miles and lasting 24 hours, Ecker said, “It’s the marathon of the horse world…heat stress and fluid levels are all huge components so that became my mission, to help educate riders on how to better care for horses. It’s a very technical sport and that’s why it intrigues me.”

After being promoted to senior director, Ecker said the job continues to combine all her interests, including teaching, horses, exercise physiology and the research process in support of the welfare of horses through education.

In her role as director, Ecker said she oversees money coming from the equine industry to researchers, which she described as a unique position for the Ontario horse industry.

“We are the centre for the horse owner at the University of Guelph.”

Ecker said the information gained is put back into education programs, which she added have grown dramatically in the past few years, from five online courses in 2003 to 17 today, which includes an international student base.

Ecker said one of her goals was to develop an “educational pathway, with careers in the horse industry, not just jobs.”

Part of that program was Equimania!, a 10,000 square foot interactive youth exhibit on horse health and safety, which will be on display in Kentucky next September at the World Equestrian Games.

The event is the largest equine event after the Olympic Games and the first time the event has been held in North America.

For her future goals, Ecker said she wants to continue building a relationship between the centre and the equine industry while trying to get in some riding for pleasure herself.

“My two pasture ornaments aren’t ridden too much, but I do ride when I can.”