And so it ends, not with a whimper, but a bang…of a gavel. Quentin Riding Club, the storied locale for horse shows, will be auctioned off on July 13.

It’s a stunning end to a months-long saga in which the organization was: saved from Sherriff’s Sale for back taxes; apparently sold to a group of individuals who planned to upgrade and preserve Quentin as a stable and show venue; and the beneficiary of at least two GoFundMe campaigns that failed to gain traction.

Harry Bachman, whose company will handle the auction, says there has been some interest from potential buyers looking to tour the place prior to the auction. But that shouldn’t be taken as an indication of the likely prospects for the auction.  “A lot of people that are interested don’t really have to look. They know what’s there,” he says. He is anticipating a big turnout for the auction.

He says the terms are that Quentin will be sold for a minimum of $950,000. The 46-acre site is billed as “prime real estate,” which may be a reason why only a half-dozen or so people have thus far asked for a tour of the property. If potential buyers are interested only in the land, it doesn’t matter what sits on it now. So, the historic stables, the building, the pastures—all the elements that contributed to Quentin’s iconic stature—are irrelevant.

As was reported earlier, Alisa Pitt, an equestrian and equine sports massage and athletic recovery specialist, was part of a group that believed they would be purchasing Quentin, after a 38-6 vote of the club’s members to accept Pitt’s proposal. Thus began an odyssey of uncertainty. In the months since that vote, Pitt has reported that they could not get accurate information from the club about the status of their debts. Eventually, Quentin’s board stopped communicating with Pitt’s group. Just weeks ago, she heard that the facility was going to be auctioned off.

“They strung us along. I don’t think they ever had any intention of selling it to us.” Alisa Pitt, part of the group that had planned to reinvigorate the ailing and failing Quentin Riding Club, is discouraged and frustrated.

She feels defeated after months of wild swings between optimism that the iconic equestrian venue would rise from the throes of bankruptcy and tax liens, and despair as new massive debts were revealed and the people managing the property’s unwinding stopped communicating with her and her partners.

“When they stopped taking our phone calls, that pretty much tells you everything you need to know,” she said. Except, it doesn’t.

An Iconic Venue on the Brink

Generations of equestrians in southeastern Pennsylvania view the Quentin Riding Club as an icon. It’s where they rode their first ponies into the show ring, where they sampled their first taste of a rated show. It occupies a spot in their imaginations and their hearts that will be hard to erase.

But for several years there have been omens that Quentin—if it survived as an equestrian venue—would be vastly diminished in stature. In 2015 then President of Quentin’s Board of Directors Larry Minnich announced that the Fall Show, a fixture at Quentin, was moving to Swan Lake Stables in Littlestown, PA. At the time he said that entries in the Fall Show had declined and he implied that the show was no longer making any money. “We’d like to have a horse show every day,” he said at the time, “but if it doesn’t make any money and doesn’t make any sense then there’s no reason to do it. And that was the case the last five years or so.”

He went on to explain that the footing in the outdoor rings had been washed away by heavy rainstorms. They didn’t plan to replace the footing until the highway department completed a water remediation project, but that project was delayed.

In 2018 the equestrian community learned just how serious Quentin’s problems were; they were far deeper than the issue of footing in the outdoor rings. There was a lien on the property for nearly $100,000 in back taxes, and it was scheduled to be auctioned off by the tax bureau. In addition, one of the officers of the club started a GoFundMe page seeking contributions to help keep the facility afloat.

Finally, the Board and membership of Quentin agreed to sell the facility to Pitt and the partnership she represented. The vote was a resounding 38-6, and Pitt was enthusiastic about sharing some of the plans she and her group had for Quentin. “Our ultimate goal is to preserve Quentin and its legacy,” she said. “The biggest plan is a boarding facility. We do have a multi-year plan to upgrade the facility.” They also planned to have a restaurant, and one of her partners already owns several successful restaurants.

That was then. She hesitated to provide details about her group’s plans, because the sale was not yet final.

Where Are They Now?

Pitt now says the effort to get real, verifiable information about the true financial situation of the club has been futile. “Quentin is acting in their standard rare form,” she says. “They agreed to sell it for debts owed, which originally was claimed at $600,000. The debt was over $700,000, which is what we agreed to purchase it for.” Almost immediately, serious issues arose. “We gave them a sales agreement and then we got approval from the bank to purchase it. And then they told us they had more debt that was owed.”

Pitt explains that the quest to nail down an actual figure of how much outstanding debt Quentin has was disheartening. “We asked them how much [more debt] and we went back to the drawing board for funding. Shortly after we thought we had come up with the funding, they told us they had another $100,000 in debt.”

The Quentin Riding Club has been an institution for nearly 75 years; despite well-documented recent problems, it seems odd that the organization would not be able to ascertain the extent of its indebtedness. She said at that point she and her partners asked to see the books, so they could get a better understanding of how much debt was outstanding. “Neither the bookkeeper nor the president would give us the books.”

Ultimately Pitt found that there are more problems. “In addition, we found that they owed their accountant three or four thousand dollars, and they had not paid their taxes for 2018, which meant we would not be able to get a clean title.”

Repeated efforts to contact board members for this article failed. The organization’s website has been taken down and their phone number has been disconnected. A phone call to the Board’s former President, Larry Minnich, was not returned.

“Basically, they just stopped working with us in any capacity. They wouldn’t give us the books and wouldn’t respond,” Pitt says. “We submitted our offer and let them know what it entailed. At this point we have no idea what they’re doing.”

A Change of Heart, Or Something Else?

Pitt says that, as far as she knows, the club’s members have not changed their minds about selling to her partnership. “There has not been a club meeting that changed the vote. The only reason I got a place to speak the first time (when the members voted 38-6 to sell) was because I mailed a personal letter to every single club member. A lot of them were not aware of what was going on.”

She says that she’s disappointed and had resisted speaking out before this. But she worries that the property will ultimately be sold to a developer and the chance to preserve the historic riding club will be lost.

“At this point we all know that we did everything we possibly could. People should know the truth. Our hope is that maybe some equestrian group would buy it. To deny the community the ability to keep that history and that heritage and make it a place for people to continue to build memories,” she says, is shameful.