Pamela Rickenback, a spiritualist, social activist and former Philadelphia Horse Carriage driver, founded Blue Star Equiculture in 2009 along with Christina Hansen, another carriage driver now working in New York City. Pam runs it with her husband, Paul Moshimer, a former fire chief. The farm has 32 retired or rescued work horses, the limit allowed by Massachusetts state law.
Maria and I accepted an invitation to visit the farm, which is intensely disliked by animal rights organizations because the farm supports the idea of work for horses and farm animals. The fences at the farm have been cut, releasing several geldings who nearly ran into the busy road outside, causing the farm to install a surveillance system. Pam and Paul are the subject of nearly continuous harassment, online and off. Animal rights volunteers harass donors, put up their personal information online, put up photos of horses they claim are being abused, threaten demonstrations and other disruptions.
Pam went out to get Paddy, a retired New York City Carriage Horse driven for years by Stephen Malone, a leader in the carriage trade struggle to keep the city from banning the the carriage horses. Pam says she understood she would be attacked when she agreed to help run the farm.
Pam has a strong spiritual sense of the horses, whom she believe are present on the earth to help promote peace, ironic given that her life and Paul’s are anything but.
The farm believes that the horses are national treasures, that horses and humans belong together and ought not be taken from one another. Blue Star Equiculture believes that work can and does have a positive meaning for horses and for people, and is not a form of abuse, as has been suggested by many animal rights organizations. The farm believes that draft horses, through their long experience of working with people, have a strong need to be with people. Their brochure says that “horses enjoy their work, whether the work is in harness, pulling a carriage or plow, under saddle, or as a companion.
It is this last position that seems to have drawn the fury of the organizations who say they support the rights of animals. I have been around working animals for much of life, they do love work, they need to do it in order to be healthy and survive in our world.