Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club

The Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to inner-city horsemanship in north Philadelphia.

Part of a century-long tradition of black urban cowboys and horsemanship in Philadelphia, local horsemen maintain and care for horses, and teach neighborhood youth to do so, while encouraging academic excellence and providing positive ways to spend their leisure time outdoors. The nonprofit organization has struggled to find funding and a place to operate. In 2015, it acquired federal nonprofit status and the title deeds for a small lot.

The horses used in the program are usually purchased at a livestock auction in New Holland, Pennsylvania, giving a second chance to animals that would likely otherwise be killed.

The Fletcher Street club stables are in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood of north Philadelphia, on the edge of Fairmount Park. Informal stables exist throughout North and West Philadelphia and in Cobbs Creek Park, on private and abandoned city land. The horses are ridden throughout the city's streets and parks, and regular races are held on an open strip of Fairmount Park called the Speedway. Experienced horsemen and youth in the area care for the horses, and the Fletcher Street club horses receive additional care from a prominent area veterinarian.

The experienced horsemen often ride these horses past the recreational field on 15th street known as 'The Oval'. It is here that the horses catch the attention of many Temple University Diamond Band members.

One organized group is the Black Cowboys Association, which Philadelphia Weekly called "a Philadelphia institution that offers kids in the city's toughest neighborhoods the chance to claim a path out of the 'hood on horseback." Another formal horsemanship program for local teenagers is Work to Ride, based at Chamounix Equestrian Stables in Fairmount Park.

In the late 2000s, the city government razed some of the stables and the club house, ostensibly to redevelop the land. At the time, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals publicly investigated allegations by city officials that the horses were being mistreated. The allegations proved baseless. However, with the land razed and redevelopment progressing, many horses had to be moved. In the subsequent decade, a few dozen horses have remained.

...
Wikipedia