How a dream came true for a Knoxville animal rescue
Until recently, Horse Haven, a nonprofit that rehabilitates horses that have been neglected or abused, occupied 15 acres of leased property in Loudon County. When Cityview featured them in its nonprofit profile in January 2023, Safety & Serenity, executive director Ashely Ford was dreaming of a “forever home,” one they owned instead of leased. But land prices and availability made that dream seem like just that — a dream.
Enter Theresa Wahl, a horse lover and owner of a large farm in the Seymour area. Wahl gifted about half of the property to Horse Haven at the end of 2023. “She wanted to leave a legacy,” Ford says. That legacy allows the nonprofit to increase the number of horses they can care for by 150 percent, she says.
“Helping these horses is a way for me to make a difference,” Wahl told Horse Haven. “When I first learned about Horse Haven’s mission, I immediately connected with the idea of providing a second chance to animals who had been mistreated or abandoned. I wanted to be part of the solution.”
On December 6 of 2024, the staff and volunteers at Horse Haven made the move, transporting the seven horses currently housed there to the new property. Since then, they have rescued four more.
The new property offers opportunities to the nonprofit. A 15,000-square-foot building will house offices, training space for staff and volunteers and a place to host events, like the recent Breakfast in the Barn fundraiser. A six-stall barn and several run-ins (small barns in the pastures) offer space for the horses. There’s also a 12-unit hotel on the property (built for the 1982 World’s Fair) that they are considering how to use.
Improvements to the new property are the goal of their capital campaign, aptly called A Stable Future, which aims to raise $2.5 million in two phases. Ford says they’ve already raised $836,000 in phase one. The funds will go to erect a 20-stall barn, a 10-stall special needs barn and a covered arena that can be used to train horses, house ones that must be quarantined and hold events.
The nonprofit has been rescuing horses since 1999. That’s when founder Nina Margetson realized that animal control officers didn’t have a place to take an abused horse. Horse Haven is now the oldest and largest equine rescue organization in Tennessee with certification from the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries and Guardian status from the EQUUS Foundation. Horse Haven staff use their experience and expertise to help other rescue groups save animals.
The nonprofit’s 135 volunteers fill two shifts a day 365 days a year to care for the horses — feeding and grooming them, leading them outside in the morning and back to the barn before the sun comes down, cleaning their stalls, even accompanying staff and law enforcement officers on calls to rescue animals. “They are the backbone of the organization, and they all come because they love horses,” Ford says of her volunteer team. “But somehow, they find unexpected personal healing here of their own. Whether they’re dealing with illness or anxiety or family issues, everybody comes out a better person,” Ford says.
She says that 90 percent of her volunteer workforce have agreed to stay on for the move from Loudon County to Seymour. “We’re only about 20 minutes from downtown,“ she says, “and a lot of people in Seymour have signed up for volunteer orientation in January.”
The animals at Horse Haven come from anywhere in the state. They come because someone — a neighbor or a passerby — alerted animal control officers to a situation of abuse or neglect. Some of the horses rescued have never been touched by a human hand and are feral. Some have only had what grows in their field to eat. Some owners surrender them; others fight tooth and nail to get them back.
Once a horse is seized, it is taken to UT Veterinary Hospital for an exam. A horse will remain there until it is well enough to move on to Horse Haven. Once there, it is weighed and photographed on a weekly basis, documenting its original condition and subsequent progress to district attorneys until litigation is complete. Sometimes that can take years.
“Our horses have been through things,” Ford told Cityview. “We can watch them heal and learn to trust again, and their personalities come out. … It’s almost magical.”
For more information about Horse Haven and to learn how to help, go to https://horsehaventn.org.
To learn more about the organization, check out our recent story, Safety & Serenity.