Help Save Some of the Last Horse Barns in San Mateo County

PLEASE HELP:

Keep Ranches and Horses in the Rancho Corral de Tierra on the California Coast

Help us keep a vibrant equestrian culture, and its economic and social benefits on the San Mateo County Coast in California.

Rancho Corral de Tierra includes 4,000 acres of land managed by Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) which is part of the National Park Service. Four horse barns with stable facilities for 220 horses (Moss Beach Ranch, Ember Ridge, Ocean View Farm, Redtail Ranch) operate within the Rancho Corral de Tierra property on 150 acres stretching from Pacifica to El Granada. These equestrian centers host public programs, including summer camps, horse clinics, trail rides, horseback riding lessons, and adaptive riding/job training programs for disabled and neurodiverse children and adults. Many of these programs are not available anywhere else in San Mateo County.

In January 2024, a Freedom of Information Act request by the Coastside Horse Council uncovered a disturbing truth.

We discovered that the GGNRA had secretly developed a “Rancho Corral de Tierra Comprehensive Site Management Plan" in 2020.

This plan, developed without any equestrian community input and with limited community consultation, proposes radical decreases in horse operations at four stables on the California coast.

The GGNRA wrongly claims that horses are polluting the San Vicente Creek in Rancho Corral de Tierra with human pathogenic bacteria.

The new Rancho Site Management Plan, if implemented, will have devastating impacts on current equestrian operations and the equestrian community:

• Closes down and eliminates 2 equestrian centers (Ocean View, Redtail Ranch), which offer horse boarding, public riding lessons, and an adaptive riding program.

• Consolidates, downsizes, and moves horse operations at the 2 other equestrian centers (Moss Beach Ranch, Ember Ridge Equestrian Center).

• Reduces the current horse boarding capacity (220) to 40 or fewer horses. This will eliminate at least 80% of horses currently boarded at these barns.

• Eliminates most horse-related facilities including arenas, pastures, and equipment facilities/workshops, and replaces them with a NPS Visitors’ Center, parking lot, and campsites.

THE TIME TO FIGHT THIS PLAN IS NOW.

Please support the Coastside Horse Council’s work to keep 100% of the horses on the Rancho with a one-time or recurring donation. Your donation will help cover our legal costs, events, and other advocacy activities on behalf of equestrians and recreational users of this area. Equestrians and horses are an integral part of the community in Rancho Corral de Tierra. If the GGNRA takes the ranches out of Rancho, we will lose an important part of our community, our economy, a cherished way of life - and history of this park.

For more information, please visit Coastside Horse Council.

The Coastside Horse Council is a 501(3)(c) nonprofit organization (tax payer ID 99-2853251). Donations to Coastside Horse Council are deductible to the fullest extent allowable under the law.