The world of all things horses returns to the 25-acre climate-controlled Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center in Harrisburg, PA February 29 to March 3. Horse World Expo, the east coast’s largest and best attended equestrian expo, features four days of non-stop education, entertainment and shopping. Scores of horses of all breeds and types and leading equestrian clinicians and entertainers draw tens of thousands of horse enthusiasts from across the eastern United States and beyond.
Horse World Expo is two events in one. The Expo features regional, national and international clinicians covering almost every topic of interest to horse owners and enthusiasts, competitions and presentations by regional horses and riders and one-stop, unparalleled shopping with everything imaginable for horses, riders and horse lovers…all in one huge, heated building.
You never know where you will find the horse that is perfect for you. For Janine Guido, the horse that fills all her needs came out of a kill pen in Alabama.
Janine has been riding since she was five years old, but injuries kept her out of the saddle for more than a decade. She remained vitally entwined with animals, running Speranza Animal Rescue at her family’s 17-acre farm near Mechanicsburg, PA. The rescue focuses primarily on bully breed dogs, but also includes a wide range of farm animals plus two zebras and a camel.
As far as horses go, Speranza was focused on a few older, neglected or unrideable animals that needed a healthy retirement home. Known for her willingness to take in the worst cases, Janine didn’t have a horse she could ride.
As test subjects for a new Pythiosis vaccine and immunotherapeutic, the wild Chincoteague Ponies of Assateague Island in Virginia have helped researchers save equine lives.
Pythiosis – commonly known as swamp cancer – once affected animals living in tropical temperatures. It has worked its way up the coast, now affecting horses in colder temperatures, too. Caused by a fungus-like germ called Pythium insidiosum, it infects plants, mammals and birds.
In horses, the disease triggers skin lesions when water contaminated with swimming Pythium spores enters through a cut, even as small as a mosquito bite. Most often, legs or hooves are affected, but it can be anywhere.
There are programs that help young people from low-income communities learn to ride and there are programs to help those same students achieve success in the classroom.
Now a new non-profit organization in Maryland is marrying the two initiatives.
Saddle Up Scholars was founded early last year with a mission to provide tutoring, standardized test prep and academic coaching to children from underserved communities, while partnering with existing equestrian programs providing riding lessons to young people from Baltimore City and beyond.
Saddle Up Scholars is the brainchild of two veteran educators and horsewomen who met through an equine vet years ago. They discovered they had similar careers and interests but also recognized, as they say in their mission statement, “the power of education and the positive influence of horses” to help young people succeed.
Everyone calls him “Poppy,” a sobriquet that only suggests 91-year-old Bill Gotwals’ spirit. He could also be called “savvy,“ and “kindly.” And whatever you might call someone who doesn’t like the word “no.”
“His dad died when he was young, and the way things worked back then, he went to live with one of his older sisters,” his granddaughter Andrea Gotwals Boone says. At some point, his mother remarried, and the family was reunited. Gotwals, co-founder of Brook Ledge Horse Transportation, started a dairy farm with his brother in Oley, PA, in his 20’s. As the dairy farm expanded, Gotwals and his brother diversified the business, around 1955. “They got into trucking and started hauling pigs to the packing plants in Indiana,” Boone explains. And that is when a brand-new opportunity presented itself to the brothers.
Patrick McMurtie of Orefield, PA has completed his junior years as a rider by earning top awards in Saddle Seat Equitation. A UPHA National Challenge Cup top 10 finalist in 2022 and 2023, he was the World Champion for his age group at 16. Now 18, Patrick topped off his equitation honors with a Reserve Championship in the 2023 Good Hands and Silver Medal in the USEF National Medal Finals.
“He has been a highly successful show rider for the last several years, earning state championships and top awards nationally. He is also an absolutely wonderful and smart young man,” Patrick’s trainer Tara Wentz-Goosley said.
To advertise or for more information, please contact: Debbie Reid or Phyllis Hurdleston at 717-509-9800.
debbie@eastcoastequestrian.net or phyllis@eastcoastequestrian.net
P.O. Box 8412, Lancaster, PA 17604