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Manhattan Saddlery
Ithilien Stables, located in Whitehouse, New Jersey, and home away from home to many riders from New York City, held an event at Manhattan Saddlery, NYC’s only tack shop, celebrating a story on Ithilien Stables that appeared in the August issue of Sidelines Magazine. The event featured shopping, wine and beverages, and a cheese selection from a favorite NYC cheese shop. Sol Reischer, a board member of GallopNYC, spoke about their therapeutic riding work and their recent expansions in the city, including their own facility, Sunrise Stables, in Queens. Leah Epstein, trainer and proprietor of Ithilien Stables, treated everyone to a talk on the history of horsemanship, citing classical texts like Xenophon and remarking how little the basic tenets of caring for and working with horses have changed over the millennia. She also emphasized Xenophon’s (progressive at the time, and still applicable) point that horses must feel joy and pleasure in their work to perform their best: “For what the horse does under compulsion … is done without understanding; and there is no beauty in it either, any more than if one should whip and spur a dancer.” Words to live by!
