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on a business basis. Such is especially so given the fact that
she repeatedly referred to her horses throughout her testimony as
her “babies”, even in the case when she was referring to one of
her horses that was relatively old.21
Second, petitioner has never decreased the 36 hours per week
that she works in her dental practice to devote more time to the
horse activity, and she has never increased the 30 hours per week
that she spends with her horses.22 The dental practice is an
established business, and petitioner claims that the horse
activity is a business in its startup phase. By her own
admission, however, she works fewer hours per week in her
self-described startup business than she does in her established
business. Given her claim and our finding that she spends time
in the horse activity on each day of the week, it also appears
that she spends on each of the days that she is not working as a
dentist less time in the horse activity than the average 9 hours
per day that she works as a dentist.23 We recognize that 30
21 Feyras Raehele, Kart Blanche, and Borissa were 24, 24,
and 21 years old, respectively, in the year of petitioner’s
trial.
22 Although petitioner did take some time off from her
dental practice, we find no credible evidence in the record from
which to conclude that any of this time that she spent in the
horse activity was an increase to her regular 30 hours per week.
23 In other words, if petitioner had devoted 9 hours a day
to the horse activity on each of the 3 days every week that she
did not work as a dentist, she would have spent on those 3 days
(continued...)
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