National Riding Stables Horse Rescue was proudly founded by Terry and John Latschar

When taking over the National Riding Stables in 2015, we dedicated ourselves to providing our guests with an unparalleled experience, through a unique combination of a horseback tour of America's most famous battlefield, expert battlefield interpretation, and superb customer service. In addition, through the horseback ride across Gettysburg Battlefield our guests gained an appreciation for the beauty, power, and wonder of the horse.

Over the next three years, we began to realize that our mission statement left out the most important part of the equation - the horses! Without healthy, well-cared-for horses, we couldn't accomplish our mission. But some of the horses we initially acquired were suffering from poor treatment. Many that we acquired whether bought at auction, purchased from horse dealers, or rescued from kill pens, were horses in distress, due to neglect, poor care, and/or poor treatment. Since we love horses, more and more of our emphasis over those three years has been in healing and caring for these distressed horses.

Unfortunately, for our original business model, the more time and money we spent in caring for these distressed horses, the harder it became to operate as a for-profit company. Unlike many horse operations, we refused to send horses that cannot work any longer to auction, since a very large percentage of such horses end up in the slaughter pens. Instead, we patiently worked to find them good retirement homes, where they would be provided love and care for the rest of their lives. This took time and patience, while the costs of continuing to care for horses that can no longer work became more and more expensive.

The solution was to change our business model: The National Riding Stables Horse Rescue has been created as a non-profit organization for the purpose of rescuing, healing, rehabilitating, and retraining distressed horses, for eventual adoption as weekend trail horses or companion horses.

We will continue to provide guided horseback tours of Gettysburg National Military Park as a principle means of raising funds for the care of the horses, and as a principle means of raising public awareness of the wonders of horses and the desperate need to raise funds to save, heal, and find retirement homes for distressed horses.

We will also seek contributions and donations from all those who become aware of the need to save these horses. We will seek their assistance through donations, volunteer work, or by "sponsoring" the care of a horse. Those who are willing and capable of providing a retirement home for a horse will be required to sign a "no auction/no kill" contract in order to adopt a horse and take it to a new home.