Cowboys in the Ghetto

Sep 28, 2011
Chris Thomas

Caring for Horses has Many Benefits - C. Thomas

Located in the most unlikely of places lives a group of black cowboys that work to make a difference.

In the streets of Philadelphia the most unlikely of occupants were noted to be found on public land that had been abandoned. These occupants and their owners have apparently been involved in teaching kids good values and keeping them off the streets for decades past.

Cowboys in the Neighbourhood

G. Neri wrote his recent novel, Ghetto Cowboy after stumbling across an article in LIFE magazine. Having arrested his attention, the author found himself inspired to research this novelty further and pursue writing a fictional piece about these factual events.

In an area that became overrun by gangs, the neighbourhood was no longer somewhere that provided a safe place to live. Unlikely heroes, the horses found at the Fletcher Street makeshift stables became a way of saving lives. “By getting boys interested in raising a horse rather than killing another human being, these cowboys gave the youth something positive: father figures, focus, and the ability to stand tall,” says Neri.

Back at the start of the 1900s, the east coast housed many black horse trainers and jockeys. As is commonplace still today, horses once they have finished racing are either used for breeding, or if not able to be bred or not considered ‘good enough’ due to performance and pedigree, they have often been sold for slaughter.

Rather than see this happen to horses that they loved, some trainers started taking the horses home to their own back yards or make-shift stables. This soon progressed to utilising land that had been abandoned by the City of Philadelphia. Suddenly these horses that had a questionable future were being put to use as an object lesson for young children on how to raise horses and take responsibility for something.

“It’s out here in a dense grid of low slung houses that kids train horses and, in the process, learn life lessons that they can carry through their coming of age in one of the city’s toughest areas,” writes Johnny Dwyer in an article ‘Hoofbeats on Fletcher Street’.

This tradition has been responsible for providing a safe place away from poor influences on street corners. “If we can keep these guys here at the stable, gettin’ dirty, then they’re not getting involved in drugs, stealin’, killin’,” says Lee Cannady, a firm believer in the benefits of the Fletcher Street stables.

Instead of an uncertain future, kids are given the chance to do something productive and proactive. At the same time they can dream of one day racing the horses as those older than them commonly do each spring.

A rare find in the heart of a built up city proved to be something that encapsulated an idea fit for Neri’s next novel. Ghetto Cowboy is a great fictional piece that puts you right in the heart of a culture that should be encouraged to continue.