By Kevin Brosky

Ellis Ferrell lets out a deep sigh. Ferrell is wearing a back brace these days. He’s worn down and spread too thin.

Ellis Ferrell sits with a grazing horse outside the Fletcher Street stables.

Fletcher Street has become synonymous with horses. The stables there existed even before Ferrell arrived on the scene in the 1950s. The North Philadelphia locale has been the subject of documentary films, books and stories for its longstanding mission to mentor the community’s youth and keep them away from the web of drugs and violence into which it is often not difficult for them to fall.
For decades, Ferrell has been a proponent of that goal.
“I always liked horses and I always liked kids, too,” said Ferrell, who has been working with horses since his childhood.
Ferrell said he always dreamed of buying his own horse as a child, and when he came to Philadelphia, that’s exactly what he did. He purchased several horses at local auctions and, at one time, had 23 horses of his own. This gave him the opportunity to reach out to the children of the community for years.

“A lot of kids would come around the stable, who wanted their own horse. They reminded me of me,” he says. “I would assign them to a horse to take care of, and it helped teach them responsibility and respect. They learned to respect the horses and respect themselves, and they learned to respect others.”
Things have changed at the Fletcher Street stables over the past several years. In March 2008, agents of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals raided the property, leading the Department of Licenses and Inspections to shut down a number of Fletcher Street’s facilities.
A statement from the PSPCA called the condition of Fletcher Street stables “atrocious,” and the group removed two ponies from the premises that were “in need of immediate medical attention.”
Ellis Ferrell is still scratching his head. It doesn’t make much sense to him.

Butch, a regular of the stables, hoses down his horse.

“Their vet took a look at those ponies, and he said there was nothing wrong with them,” he says. “They had to give them back.”
Ferrell asserts that any claims made of the horses on Fletcher Street being underfed and mistreated are wrong. He says a veterinarian makes regular visits to the stable but can also be called in the case of any emergency. Ferrell maintains that “people who knew horses knew better.”
“These are our pets. We feed them right,” he says firmly. “There’s not a horse down here that’s treated badly. These guys cherish their horses.
“Hell, they get better care than I get,” he adds.

Clashes with the PSPCA soon led to the demolition of several stables and corrals on the lot, leaving over 40 horses without a living space. As a result, Ferrell and his riding club were forced to sell many of the horses at auctions, give some away and, in a few sad cases, put the horses down.
“Turned into fertilizer,” as Ferrell puts it.
“Now what good is that?” he wonders aloud, frustration finding its way into his tone.
Ferrell says his stable has often purchased horses at auctions simply to save them from being put down. One longtime pony of his has only one eye since birth. Another horse has a crooked mouth.
“They wouldn’t have stood a chance,” he says.
Currently, the stables on Fletcher Street house around 50 horses, although that number is nowhere near what it used to be. Ferrell says he has seen an overall decline in the number of urban stables and that riding in the city is simply “dying out.”

Leroy Simon stands with his horse, Fantasia.

His stable has felt the serious negative impact of the PSPCA’s endeavors and the media attention that he contends was largely slanted.

“They tried to make us look like bad people.”

Ferrell says he believes the media, as well as the city – and in turn, the public – simply followed the PSPCA’s lead, without ever getting his side of the story.

The Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club has taken a serious blow to its reputation ever since. The results of the controversy are clear cut: Ferrell and the stable no longer have the resources to reach out to the kids of the community, and the kids are barely coming around anymore.

“I used to get help from kids who would come after school,” Ferrell explains. “It’s just me now, and I’m not as active as I used to be.”

Despite the negativity aimed at the stables, Fletcher Street is still a home to many North Philadelphia residents, who feel at home in the niche of urban riding.

One such patron is Leroy Simon, a South Carolina-born country gentleman, who was brought to live with his uncle in Philadelphia to attend school at a young age.
“At first, I hated Philly,” he said. “It was a strange place with new sounds and sights and concrete everywhere. I couldn’t go barefoot anymore.”

Simon says he often found it hard to gain acceptance growing up in the inner city with a southern accent. Then he found Fletcher Street.

“When I found the stables, it was like going back to my roots,” he says.

Though Simon does enjoy getting back to his home state once in a while, he has made a home outside of Philadelphia within the tight circle of urban riders.

One of the Fletcher Street horses basks in the sunlight.

Now, Ellis Ferrell is trying the best he can to cultivate a new generation of young riders and win back the trust of the city. He’s still hoping for enough donations to filter in, so new facilities can be constructed, more horses can be brought in and the stable can go back to mentoring the youth of the surrounding community.

“They just need something to do,” he says. “We helped keep kids out of jail. This was a safe haven, where kids went to get away from trouble. But it seems to me, the way the system is in Philadelphia, they’d rather have the kids in jail and make money off them.”

There’s a clear sense of bitterness that springs up occasionally in Ferrell’s voice, and it’s hard to blame him. He says he wishes the city could understand the good his stable has done for the community over the years and get behind their efforts.

Still, Ferrell isn’t about to stop trying. “We’ll take any kid from any area who’s interested in horses,” he says. “Anybody who shows up at that stable door, we try to help.”