Ryerss Farm for Aged Equines
Bring a few apples and carrots and see what happens.
By Fran Odyniec
Winston Churchill once said, “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”
Joe Donahue, president of the Ryerss Farm for Aged Equines says, “It’s really a great thing. You see the change in people. They get a lift.”
Both men are talking about the wondrous effect horses have on people. Of course, the noble horse was virtually everywhere you turned during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries whether pulling a plow, a street car, a carriage, a stage coach, a milk wagon, a sleigh or serving as a primary source for personal transportation.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture, on-farm horse and pony numbers peaked in 1910 at 19.8 million head. In a study conducted in 2005, the American Horse Council Foundation in Washington, D.C. found that there were 9.2 million horses in the U.S. spread across categories that include showing, recreation, farm and ranch work, rodeo, police work and informal competitions among others.
Of that number, there are about 75 senior horses at any given time enjoying their retirement at Ryerss, located along Route 23 near Coventryville in Chester County. Ryerss Farm for Aged Equines is just what it says it is: A retirement farm for horses.
Originally established in 1888 in the northeast section of Philadelphia, Ryerss is the country’s oldest non-profit organization of its kind. Its mission is to provide a comfortable retirement for horses “which faithfully served their former owners or which were rescued from abusive situations.” Once a horse is retired at Ryerss, it will never be put under saddle again.
In the land of free rein
Ryerss also provides the rare opportunity for people to observe these magnificent beasts as they graze away on the farm’s 383 acres or to get up close with them either at the fence line or at a stall in the farm’s main barn.
“They’re on a free rein,” explains Lisa Shotzberger, the farm’s animal welfare manager who fondly calls them her children. “You can watch them in their own environment, talk to them and get close to them.”
Thanks to a numbering system that coincides with each horse’s name and is posted at intervals along the fence line, visitors can identify a horse and call out to it. “They know their names,” assures Shotzberger. “Call a horse’s name and he’ll pick up his ears and respond.”
A visitor may have to wait a few minutes for, say, Pirate, Butkus or Sugar to mosey on over to the fence, but the wait is well worth it. “If you don’t know anything about horses, you can strike up a relationship,” says Shotzberger.
A horse whiles away its golden years in comfort and security on the rolling pastures at Ryerss. Xenophon, the Greek historian said, “A horse is a thing of such beauty…none will tell of looking at him as long as he displays himself in his splendor.”
Ryerss makes that splendor possible.
Visitors are welcome every day of the week between 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Admission is free; group tours are scheduled in advance. Call (877) 469-0507 or visit www.ryerssfarm.org.
Fran Odyniec resides in London, OH.
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