Red Oak Horse Farm Starts With Family

As a child, I grew up on a small farm happily riding ponies that my father kept for the amusement of his children.  That early exposure to riding led to a string of horses as I got older and I continued to ride extensively through my high school and college years.  after college, I began riding hunt seat and fox hunted and showed hunter/jumpers.

One evening I remember looking at the neighbor’s farm and idly wondering what it would be like to run a horse operation there, never envisioning that eleven years later I would be buying the old farmstead.  After retiring my show horse due to an injury, I turned my attention to starting a the horse boarding business.  And just six years after purchasing the farmstead, I was building stalls and fencing pastures.  Today the “old farmstead” is filled with roaming horses and their owners, a horse barn, loafing sheds, an indoor arena, hay fields, hay barn and riding trails… my life-long passion a reality.

Red Oak Farm wouldn’t be the success it is today if it wasn’t for the auspicious collaboration between a brother and sister who combined their resources and areas of expertise to start a horse boarding business thirty years ago.

Joanne runs the front end of the business, interacting with clients, caring for the horses, and, for a time, teaching lessons.  Jon handles the maintenance on the farm, keeping up the facility and equipment, mowing, manure removal, and running the hay operation.

Eventually, as the business grew, an independent instructor/trainer was brought in to handle the lesson program and to provide horse training services.  As a result, Terry joined the team bringing a lifetime of experience in a wide range of disciplines.