After decades of hoping, Work to Ride finally has new $15 million facility
By Janelle Burrell
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PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (KYW) — For more than half her life, Chamounix Equestrian Center in West Fairmount Park in Philadelphia has been a second home to Samantha Rahe-Krick.
The space is the heart of Work to Ride, a nonprofit organization that has given kids, including Rahe-Krick’s own son, access to horse riding for the last 32 years.
But as Rahe-Krick will tell you, little had changed since she started here when she was 10 years old.
“Horses were in the pasture with mud, probably up to my knee,” Rahe-Krick said. “The barn was very old.”
Their base was this old mounted Philadelphia police barn, but after decades of hoping and years of planning, McCausland Arena, a new 45,000-square-foot, $15 million facility, is theirs.
“Jaw on the floor, unrecognizable,” Rahe-Krick said.
Lezlie Hiner, Work to Ride’s founder and executive director, said it’s surreal.
“There’s nothing like this in any other major city, I can tell you that much right now,” she said.
The state-of-the-art space will not only allow the kids to ride year-round, but the new arena will also be rented out for events to generate income for the program.
The organization offers riding lessons to the public, and they teach polo classes too.
“Philly is a big sports town,” Hiner said, “so I’m really hoping that this will become a center for people to come and participate in our polo matches, our horse shows and really just introduce a community to the horse world.”
“It still has the same feeling that this is home,” Rahe-Krick said. “It still has that same feeling and same community here, so it’s really nice that the outside now matches the inside.”
On Saturday, Work to Ride will host its first-ever Philadelphia Arena Polo Championship at the new arena. It will feature Work to Ride alumni and other local champions.
There will be food trucks and vendors. Its annual Philadelphia Polo Classic will return next fall. Tickets for the polo championship are on sale now.
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