‘Fighting a losing battle’: Utah’s equestrian industry struggles to survive

Work starts at 5 a.m. for 67-year-old Rick Smith, who feeds over 200 horses a day at Keystone Equestrian in Bluffdale, which he owns with his wife. “It’s like ‘Groundhog Day,’” he said.

According to Smith, Keystone is one of the largest equestrian centers in Utah. He feeds enough horses to go through upward of 100 hay bales each day. But he still says working with horses is becoming “a dying industry.”

Many horse-related businesses and organizations are struggling to operate in the state amid supply chain issues and skyrocketing costs coupled with scarce equine veterinary care and encroaching development, industry leaders say.

In Cedar City, Dust Devil Ranch Sanctuary for Horses will probably dissolve whenever its nine remaining horses — all at least 20 years old — die, because it’s unlikely they’ll get adopted, said owner Ginger Grimes.

“It’s hard here,” she said. Finding volunteers is hard. Veterinary care is hard. “I mean, fundraising is the worst. The horses are actually the easiest part of this scenario.”

“The drought, the heat, you name it,” she continued. “It’s like fighting a losing battle, and I’m the only one fighting it.”

Supply chain struggles

An average horse typically eats 15 to 20 pounds of hay per day, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

Lately, that’s been hard for many horse owners to obtain, Smith said, so he’s been giving horse owners the opportunity to buy hay straight from him.

“I buy so much hay that I bring it in from all over, and some people come here and buy it from me because they have trouble getting it,” he said.

Supply chain issues with obtaining grain for his horses are improving, he said — at least now he can find what he needs. “But I think the supply chain thing with COVID made it really difficult for them to get grain shipped in,” he said.

Terry Morrison, who owns and runs Perseverance Ranch Equine Rescue & Sanctuary in Kanab with her husband, who’s a former firefighter, said they have been “wildly blessed,” because they have been able to fund their organization with his retirement. Rising costs for supplies like hay don’t go unnoticed, though.

They once paid $12,000 for their annual hay supply. Now, they’re paying between $21,000 and $23,000 for the same amount of feed.

When Grimes first established Dust Devil Ranch, she was paying $6 per regular-size bale of hay. Now, she’s paying $16 per bale.

Grimes and Morrison both blame ongoing drought in their area for the hay shortage and rising costs. Grimes worries that a lot of horses owned by people in the area “are going to wind up in a bad place,” she said, “because people can’t afford to take care of them for $16 a bale.”

Scarce veterinary care

Rural areas have also been hit particularly hard by a national veterinarian shortage that became especially pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Dr. Dirk Vanderwall, interim dean at the Utah State University College of Veterinary Medicine.

[Read more: Some Utah pet owners are waiting weeks for vet appointments. Here’s why.]

At Perseverance Ranch, Terry Morrison said the struggle to find veterinary care is constant. She has a regular vet who lives about 10 miles down the road, but he is “so incredibly overworked.” She also has a mobile vet about two hours away, and if either of those options fall through, an emergency vet in St. George is also two hours away.

But all of the horses at Perseverance are either elderly, have special needs, or are on hospice, and can’t travel by horse trailer.

In one case, a horse that had neurological issues for more than a year fell over and broke one of its legs. Lying on the ground paralyzed, it couldn’t get up. Morrison said she called “every vet in southern Utah,” but the closest one was four hours away.

The horse couldn’t be moved, so Morrison said she didn’t have any other choice but to have a neighbor come and shoot the animal to put it down.

“It’s not like if you can’t find [a vet], you go to another,” Morrison said. “And if you can’t get an animal in a trailer physically, then you’re stuck. You’re totally stuck.”

High prices ‘pushing people out’

At Keystone Equestrian, Smith said he wants to give people the opportunity to spend time with horses, even if he loses money in the process. “We don’t make any money,” he said. “We probably lose $4,000 or $5,000 a month. But I enjoy it.”

For others, however, “the cost of doing it is getting so high that it’s pushing people out,” he said.

Horse trainer Crystal Johnson said she is about to transfer 13 Arabian and half-Arabian horses that belong to clients from Diamond Equestrian Center in Lehi to Keystone Equestrian because she can’t afford Diamond’s boarding fees.

Rob Lund, the general manager at Diamond Equestrian Center, said that Diamond Equestrian’s rates are comparable to similar businesses in the area. Lund also cited rising costs of hay and fuel as reasons why their rates are what they are.

Johnson said she just feels lucky to have found a place so close to her previous one.

“Horse facilities are spread out,” she said. “You’ve got a good one in Ogden, and you’ve got a good one in Roy, and you got a good one in Lehi, and you’ve got one in Spanish Fork, and one in Tooele.”

Smith said the housing boom is pushing stables and equestrian centers farther and farther afield, with most open land near cities getting too expensive or eaten up by housing.

“It’s really a problem,” he said. “So the number of places to board horses has dropped a lot. And consequently, we will see a lot more people coming here or calling us about boarding options than we ever used to.”

Kelsey Bjorklund, executive director of Lazy B Equine Rescue of Utah in Clinton, located within Davis County, agreed with Smith’s statement that the industry is dying.

“With all of the development that’s going on in Utah, there’s been so many different barns and riding arenas and equine businesses that have either stopped or lessened their programs and their services, just because everyone is being bought up by developers,” she said. “It’s really kind of sad.”

Smith said that in order to make sure Keystone doesn’t disappear, “with housing and houses encroaching all around us,” he and his wife are thinking about turning the facility into a foundation — whatever they can do to make sure they can continue exposing people to the magic of being around horses.

“For me, whenever there’s stress in my life, sitting on the back of a horse, you don’t think about it,” he said. “All you think about is the animal that you’re riding. And that, I think, is important for people to experience — especially if they’ve had physical or emotional distress, and they need something to help them recover from it.”

Correction: Nov. 21, 1:50 p.m. • This story has been updated to reflect Rick Smith’s correct age.

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