Discover the best in equine boarding, training and sales and participate in a long tradition of equestrianism in Dutchess County. Barns cater to a wide range of skill levels and disciplines, ensuring that every unique rider has a place to fit their needs. Dutchess County is also host to a number of qualified equine therapists.
Mashomack Polo Club
Briarcliff Lane, Pine Plains, NY
Located on a historic 19th-century dairy farm in Pine Plains, the Mashomack Polo Club is an idyllic place for polo players of all levels to gather, learn and compete. The club offers professional lessons and clinics for polo players and a Saturday coaching league where players of all levels come together to play in matches “designed to help you learn the rules and hone your game,” according to Mashomack’s website. More information on lessons and boarding is available on their website, www.mashomackpoloclub.com, or by contacting Polo Manager Juan Olivera at (561) 601-9316.
Southern Dutchess Equestrian Center
187 Robinson Lane, Wappingers Falls, NY
Southern Dutchess Equestrian Center offers a range of boarding services and lessons for riders of all skill levels. The 20 stall shed row barn boasts a heated tack room and refrigerator. Southern Dutchess aims to create a fun and relaxed atmosphere for riders, with a focus on keeping things “fun and rewarding for both rider and steed.” The barn also offers summer camps for children and serves as a venue for birthday parties.
Netherwood Acres
883 Netherwood Rd, Hyde Park, NY
This full service barn features a full cross-country course, indoor and outdoor rings and a close relationship with the Millbrook Hunt Club. Riders interested in show jumping, dressage, cross country and fox hunting can enjoy the barn’s facilities and join fox hunting meets at their leisure. Netherwood also offers sale services and lessons for riders of all levels.
Casper, Monty and Ollie enjoying grass and hay in one of the paddocks at Lucky Orphans Horse Rescue in Dover. Lucky Orphans takes abused, neglected or abandoned horses and other farm animals and provides them with care and a home until their final days.Provided
Lucky Orphans Horse Rescue
2699 Route 22, Dover Plains, NY
Unlike the rest of the facilities on this list, Lucky Orphans doesn’t lease out space to boarders. Rather, this barn is a nonprofit rescue for injured, abused and neglected animals to come and live out the rest of their days in stress-free bliss. Lucky Orphans hosts local children and school groups for educational events and runs an equine therapy program. The farm hosts regular line dancing nights in it’s converted indoor ring and on Oct. 25 will be hosting a Halloween party complete with a haunted hay ride through the woods.
Runnin Broke Ranch
123 Nottingham Road, Clinton Corners, NY
For those in need of western style equestrian training, Runnin Broke Ranch offers lessons and clinics in barrel racing and western disciplines. One hour private or group lessons are available for riders of all levels, even if they’ve never sat on a horse before. Runnin Broke also offers full and turnout board with discounts for multiple horses.
Mountain View Ranch
341 Maloney Road, Wappingers Falls, NY
This picturesque facility in Wappingers Falls features a 1/2 mile race track in addition to its indoor and outdoor rings. The 120 acre property is surrounded on all sides by farmland criss-crossed with trails. Mountain View Ranch offers full training board for its clients with access to all facilities and trails with breathtaking views of the Hudson Valley.
Uphill Dressage Center
45 Ice Pond Lane, Salt Point, NY
Uphill Dressage Center is dedicated to helping its clients become the best dressage riders they can be. The regulation size indoor arena is heated and features mirrors lining the walls so riders can watch and analyze their riding from every angle. The facility also has access to miles of trails for when riders want to get out of the ring.
Calypso Farm
25 Seelbach Lane, Staatsburg, NY
Calypso offers full service board and training to its clients and access to facilities including a large riding field, cross country course and 40 acres of trails. Lesson horses are available for riders that don’t have their own, or riders can bring their horse in for lessons.
Netherwood Acres in Hyde Park has a long relationship with the Millbrook Hunt Club. Kristen smith, the owner and head trainer, has sale horses, leased horses, and owners hunting three days a week. They have an expansive cross country field, outdoor show jumping arena, dressage arena, a large indoor arena, and trails available to ride over.Provided
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KK Kozik in her studio
It is a particularly fitting philosophy for an artist whose paintings often begin with the world around her but rarely end there. There might be something recognizable — a stone wall, an apple tree, a crow — but then there is something less certain. Something that appears to be one thing becomes another upon inspection. Memory gets involved. So does imagination. So does time.
Since moving from New York City to Sharon, Connecticut in 2006, the landscape around her has become increasingly important to that process.
“I just saw things differently,” Kozik said.
The change was not immediate. She remembers an earlier version of herself driving through Vermont without paying much attention to what was happening beyond the windshield.
“I didn’t have the means to see what was happening around me,” she said. “I just sort of la, la, la, la, la, driving to Vermont.”
But, she said, she started to pay attention differently.
“I became more sensitized as time went on,” she said.
Asked whether that change came with age, she said, “Age and so-called wisdom.”
There’s a sense of loss in her landscapes, but a particular kind of loss that also has a twinge of redemption. Specifically, what happens to a landscape when people leave it?
“When the people go away, the wildlife comes back,” Kozik said.
KK Kozik in her studio with her painting “Golden Delicious.”Natalia Zukerman
Kozik’s work has never settled into a single recognizable formula. She has painted landscapes, figures and still lifes, moved toward abstraction and returned to representation. Her subjects change, but the underlying impulse remains: to take what is in front of her and discover what else there might be.
Kozik describes herself as someone who is always trying to figure things out. Her paintings often have the feeling of a thought in progress rather than a conclusion. They have been called “single-line novellas,” a description that makes sense: They can contain the suggestion of an entire story without telling you exactly what happened.
The animals are part of that storytelling.
They arrived partly because of what was disappearing.
“They were like the new redemption in a way,” she said.
There is something almost funny about the way Kozik talks about this — not because the loss itself is funny, but because she refuses to turn it into a grand pronouncement. She observes something, considers it, and lets it complicate the work.
That same sensibility comes through when she talks about her own development as an artist. Her paintings make room for interpretation. They don’t always tell the viewer what an animal symbolizes, or why a landscape has been altered, or where a particular image came from. Instead, they leave enough evidence to make you curious and enough room for your own stories.
The effect is not accidental. Kozik has spent years thinking about how images work, both as paintings and as containers for ideas.
Her work is currently included in “The Naturalist,” a group exhibition on view through Sept. 13 at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Kent, alongside Richard Klein, Sally Maca, Rick Shaefer and Tricia Wright. The exhibition brings together artists whose work engages with the natural world, including its forms, histories and mysteries.
Kozik is an especially apt fit for the exhibition. She is described by the gallery as a landscape painter, figurative painter and interiors/still-life painter whose work frequently moves toward painterly abstraction. Her practice, the gallery notes, is “fluid and continuous” — always searching for new pictorial problems to solve.
That search has also extended beyond her own studio.
For several years, Kozik ran ICEHOUSE Project Space, an 18th-century icehouse on Sharon’s town green that she transformed into an unusual venue for contemporary art. It opened in 2018 with Dan Devine’s “Inside-Out NASCAR” and went on to host site-specific projects by artists including Mark Dion, Eric Aho, Janet Biggs, Richard Klein, Kristin Jones, Lisa Hoke and Ryan Frank. The projects addressed everything from the decline of winged insects and native and invasive plants to Sharon’s iron industry, its gardens and its history as an ice-producing community.
The space is now closed, but its premise still feels connected to Kozik’s painting practice. Each project responded in some way to the physical location, turning what might otherwise have been a little historic outbuilding into a setting for contemporary art.
Kozik’s own work does something similar with the landscape. She takes a place and lets it become more than a place.
Kozik’s paintings tell us that something happened before we arrived, and that something will happen after we leave.
And then there is the question of what to do with the space in between.
Maybe Kozik’s paintings are less about that space and more about an idea, as she put it, of “which questions to think about.”
Jazzmine Bone and A Stitch in Tyme power through the Gambler’s Choice run during the 2024 Lakeville Open.
The event, which has been held continuously for 69 years, is open to the public with free admission.
Individual competitions will run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and visitors can stop by briefly or settle in for the day.
A food truck, bake sale and portable restrooms will be available on-site.
The show is the primary fundraiser for The Lakeville Pony Club, with proceeds supporting young riders who need financial assistance to participate in lessons. Members and their families work throughout the year to create the event for both competitors and spectators.
Members of the Lakeville Pony Club and Echo the pony arrive for the costume class during the Lakeville Open in 2024.Caitlin Von Graf
For those new to horse shows, the day offers a chance to learn more about the sport and understand what happens in the ring. In equitation competitions, judges evaluate the rider’s skill, from beginners learning walk and trot to more advanced riders navigating cantering and jumping courses.
Hunter competitions focus on the horse’s style and smoothness over fences, while jumper classes emphasize accuracy and speed as horses and riders race against the clock without knocking down rails.
The day also includes a crowd favorite: the costume class, where horses and riders dress up in creative ensembles for a chance at the top prize.
Programs will be available onsite to help spectators identify competitors and horses. A full list of competitions, entry information and details for those interested can be found at rigameadow.com
Whether an experienced equestrian or simply curious about the sport, the Lakeville Open Horse Show offers a chance to enjoy a Hudson Valley tradition that continues to bring the community together.
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