Stable Recovery: How Horses Transform Homeless Men Into Horsemen (New Directions in the Human-Animal Bond)

When Kentucky horseman and business owner Frank Taylor climbed the steps from his basement after a tragic discovery, he knew his life had to change. Stable Recovery: How Horses Transform Homeless Men Into Horsemen is the heartwarming story of how homeless, addicted men were paired with thoroughbred horses as a form of recovery and redemption. The program has been a resounding success.

Taylor made a gamble bigger than any ever placed at a racetrack, entrusting the care of some of the world’s most expensive horses to men who had largely been given up on. As if the combination weren’t odd enough, all this happened at his farm―a worldwide leader in thoroughbred sales and marketing.

The Stable Recovery program launched with two premises: Addicts cannot live where their addiction originated, and they needed purposeful, meaningful work. Without either of these, long-term sobriety and recovery would not work. In collaboration with Christian Countzler, a former Army veteran who experienced homelessness himself, Stable Recovery created not only an amazingly successful rehabilitation program, but a new path for addiction recovery with implications far beyond the Nicholasville, Kentucky, horse farm. An unlikely pairing in an unlikely place, this story offers hope for anyone, addict or not.

Ken Snyder is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and has been an advertising copywriter and creative director, political campaign strategist, and marketing director for a French conglomerate. For the past twenty years, he has been a “turf writer,” covering thoroughbred horse racing. Currently, he is a regular contributor to a British magazine, Gallop; a website, Thoroughbred Racing Commentary; and Trainer Magazine. He is the author of Forty Days: On the Mountaintop, Halfway Up, and From Behind the Golden Calf.