By Tara Bahrampour in the Washington Post
A couple years ago, Elaina Thomas, who manages a horse farm north of Baltimore, was on a trail ride passing a nearby retirement community when the residents sitting on their porches waved to her. She could have gone over and let them see her horse up close and been done with it. But she had another idea.
Glen Meadows, the retirement community, sits on 300 acres of rolling Maryland hills that also includes Notchcliff Farm, where Thomas works and where several horses are retired from racing. What if residents of both places could come together on a regular basis?
At the same time, Jennifer Perkovich, fitness director at Glen Meadows, had been looking for a horse farm for the residents to visit because many of them had grown up in the area and been around horses in their younger years (the Pimlico Race Course, home of this Saturday’s Preakness Stakes, is just 15 miles away). Looking around, Perkovich realized there was a barn right there on the property.
“Little did I know that Elaina had been calling for two years,” she said.
Now, every few months, a wheelchair-accessible bus makes the five-minute trip to the red barn just one hill over from the retirement community. On sunny days the bus fills up, with some residents using their own cars for supplemental transportation. Visits have included jumping demonstrations and opportunities for residents to feed the horses or watch them be shoed by the farrier. (Sometimes residents ask to ride, but the horses are privately owned by different individuals and there can be liability concerns.)
For some visitors, it brings back visceral memories.
“One of the women took my horse and said, ‘I just want to smell him,’ ” Thomas said. “And I realized she used to have horses.”
Edna Rau grooms Speedy during a visit to Notchcliff Farm. Rau was among residents at neighboring Glen Meadows Retirement Community to visit the farm. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
On Monday, the group was smaller than usual; heavy rains had made it hard to navigate the farm’s paths, so people using wheelchairs or walkers stayed home. Light and dark clouds hung in layers like wet tissue over the hill, where horses roamed freely and munched on grass.
Inside the 130-year-old barn, starlings chirped in the rafters while a half-dozen horses peered over their stall doors at a half-dozen visitors, plus several horse owners.
“We’re like their grandparents,” Bobbie Hess, 80, said of the horses.
Horses gather in a field at Notchcliff Farm. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
The visitors stroked the horses’ muzzles as Thomas talked about the animals’ individual stories and the work that goes into keeping them healthy (a large animal veterinarian and an equine dentist come out for regular visits). The 19 horses who live there range in age from 5 to 31.
“They still have a lot of spunk in them, even though they’re old,” Thomas said.
At about three human years per horse year, that put Sanbar, the 31-year-old, at about 90, a bit older than the visitors.
But even the old horses don’t want to stand around. “Thoroughbreds, they want to go out, they want to go do something,” Thomas said. “They’re very anxious to get a job.”
“All three of these are on their second careers,” Thomas said, pointing at a trio of thoroughbred mares, Mo (short for “More Silver Than Gold,”) Lasciel and Lady, known on the racetrack as “Jackpot Lady.”
Second careers for horses include riding lessons, trail rides, shows and steeplechase competitions.
Research has found that interacting with horses is beneficial to people with dementia, and equine therapy is also used for stress reduction and empathy training among veterans with PTSD, teenagers with behavior problems, and others.
The visits also help seniors in independent living, Perkovich said. ”Their mood is always so elevated when we leave. It’s amazing. And they look forward to it.”
Hosting visitors is good for the horses, too; it keeps them accustomed to socializing with new people. But while they were used to people, several of the human visitors had had little experience with horses.
“I love them, but I’m a little bit afraid of them because I don’t understand their psychology,” said Evelyn Kalms, 85, whose daughter used to ride. “My daughter says you should be a little afraid. But just letting them put their heads on my shoulder … I can see how people would get really attached to them. And I imagine they all have their own personalities.”
Hess, a retired business manager, said the visits had provided her first opportunity to get up close to a horse. “I think it has a calming effect,” she said.
A horse named Bet the Cat had had enough human socializing. The 10-year-old thoroughbred sent a couple more powerful kicks into his wooden stall.
Bet the Cat is released into a field at Notchcliff Farm. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
“Stand back,” Thomas said.
The group moved to one side, and one of the horse owners opened the gate and led the impatient horse out the barn door. In a few seconds he was a symphony of muscle and grace, galloping up the hill unfettered to where his friends stood grazing.
“Look at him go,” Kalms marveled. “Isn’t that amazing? Oh, he’s happy now.”
Generally, the horses spend their days outside, grazing or frolicking on the grassy hills as they would in the wild, Thomas explained.
For Betty Hucke, 85, petting is as close as she gets. “I think I’ve ridden a horse about once in my life,” she said. “I don’t know anything about horses. … I just enjoy them.”
But Edna Rau, 68, picked up a grooming brush and knelt beside a 30-year-old standardbred horse named Speedy. She bowed her head and murmured to the horse as her hand gravitated toward the caked-on mud on his fetlocks and smoothed it away.
“Oh, yes,” she crooned. “You just have a ball in the mud, don’t you?”
Rau’s aunt in Winona, Miss., had had Tennessee Walkers, which Rau loved to ride.
“When I went to college, I couldn’t get back often enough to ride them, so my aunt had to sell them,” she said. “I haven’t had one for, oh, about 40 years. You never stop loving them.”
Rau, who used to work in banking, moved to Glen Meadows two years ago with her husband, who was terminally ill. He died a year ago.
“Now I’m finding things I enjoy, and this is one of them,” she said.
She stroked Mo softly, saying, “Oh, yeah, you like the scratch, you like the scratch. … Yes, you’re beautiful, and you know it. … You’re just a love bug, yes you are…”
Edna Rau grooms Speedy during a visit to Notchcliff Farm. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
“It is so soothing — whether I’m grooming my dog or a horse, it is so soothing,” Rau said. “It’s just simply warm and soft and loving.”
As the group left, she told the horse owners: “This is one of the best days I’ve had in a long time. Thank you.”