I am trying to gather my thoughts & express my concerns for the equine industry as a whole so bare with me as we navigate through this.

I met Amanda Hanson of Boulder Brook Stables back in 2012. I walked into her facility & was mesmerized, mesmerized by the people, the horses, the entire property. The attention to detail, the safety precautions, the care for the horses was something I had never seen in person before. 11 years later & I feel the same way every time I step on to the BBS property.

My horses have never been happier, never been safer, have never looked so good. My Sully horse is a prime example of what magic that BBS holds to help these horses become the best they can be, but that’s a story for another day.

The facility is like an open concept house, it is large, it is spacious, it is well maintained & when it was originally designed, Amanda always had the thought of “what would we need this place to be like incase of an emergency?” She does not store large amounts of hay in her barn, there is no hay loft… HAY LOFTS ARE A HUGE FACTOR IN BARN FIRES. She does not store bedding in her buildings… ANOTHER COMMON CAUSE OF BARN FIRES. The electrical is up to date, there is an entire fire alarm system in the barns, the indoor is made of fire retardant material… Who here can say they know of any other barns with this much fire prevention in place?!?! Raise your hands now. Crickets….

This is not common practice of equine facilities & yet Boulder Brook Stables is the one that the Town of Lee has decided to target, to pick on, to use as an example of what these town officials can do to small businesses that they don’t like. The town of Lee has required updates be made so that the facility is up to date on the current fire code standings. Ok, sure, we can do that. But what about every other barn in the town??? How come they do not have to do this??? Now that the renovations are underway, you’ve decided you want a substantial amount of the updates done by a certain time??? Ok, sure, we can do that too. Oh, but now you want to fine us every single day that these renovations aren’t done??? Oh, ok well, I supposed we can figure that out too. But wait, now you’re no longer allowing us to generate any income as you’ve decided we cannot allow public on the property to see their horses, THAT THEY PAY FOR, or to do lessons, THAT THEY PAY FOR, and now we have no income to pay the previously stated fees??? Well, I’m not sure how this is going to work now.

It is one thing to ask a facility to make updates, it’s another to be a true BULLY and take away every ounce of possibility to get these updates made. They are trying to drive this barn out of business & what’s to stop them from doing it to any other horse farm in town???? What’s to say that this can’t & won’t happen to other barns in the state of NH???? The equine community needs to come together NOW to stop this or we won’t have an equine community left in this state. This is getting out of hand & these town officials have given us a new motivation to ban together & come back even stronger than before.

This weekend, I will be creating a petition as well as a go fund me to help BBS continue on this journey to prove that you cannot stop us “horse girls”. Please join me in supporting Boulder Brook Stables. Stay tuned to my personal page for the petition to be signed & the go fund me to donate towards. All funds will go directly toward the fines the town has charged ($30k & counting), the fire code updates that are still being made, but most importantly to the income that is being lost due to no longer being allowed to work.

We need to stand together. The equine industry is a FAMILY & always has been, now let’s prove it.