Lippizan groomer heads to Washington -- and, one day, citizenship

Juan Garcia has been putting off becoming a U.S. citizen for years, but after the last presidential election, he decided he really wants to be able to vote in 2012.

"I was really taken by Barack Obama. If I could have, I would have voted for him," said Garcia, who lives in Waukegan. "I liked that he wants to bring positive change to this country, and that there was so much attention placed on Hispanics, because we do so much for this country."

On Sunday, 44-year-old Garcia, who works as a horse groomer for Tempel Farms in Wadsworth, headed off to Washington, D.C., along with seven co-workers and four Tempel Lippizan horses. The animals will participate in the presidential inaugural parade in Washington, D.C., today.

The 17-hour trip requires several stops to let the animals out of the trailer, said Garcia, who was originally hired by Tempel Farms about 15 years ago to clean the stables of retired Lippizan horses. Later, he moved on to cleaning the main stables, and eventually to becoming a horse groomer and supervising other staff.

This will be his second trip to the nation's capital, but a very different one from his first two-day visit in search of work back in 1987, said Garcia, now a U.S. resident who left his native Mexico at age 17.

"I have very little education, I only went to school for five years in Mexico," he said. "This is a great privilege for me. It's a blessing. I never thought something like this would happen to me."