About East Coast Equestrian
Serving horse people since 1993, East Coast Equestrian is an award-winning regional media brand created to inform, reflect, connect, and serve the full breadth of the equestrian community along the east coast.
We believe being a horse person is more than a hobby, discipline, profession, or market segment. It is a shared identity connecting competitors and pleasure riders, trainers and barn families, breeders and backyard owners, young riders and re-riders, professionals, businesses, events, rescues, lesson programs, and lifelong horse lovers.
Published 10 times a year, East Coast Equestrian reaches an estimated 38,000 to 70,000-plus readers per issue across ten states. Each issue includes regional news, community stories, event coverage, useful information, business resources, seasonal features, and an extensive equestrian calendar.
We also partner with 100’s of the region’s leading equestrian events through sponsorships, previews, special programs, on-site distribution, and follow-up coverage. Our March issue includes the official Pennsylvania Horse World Expo program, with 10,000 additional copies distributed at the event, and our Dressage at Devon Preview reaches competitors and ticket buyers directly. The print edition is mailed to subscribers and distributed through about 525 tack shops and feed stores, with additional event distribution and thousands more readers online.
More than a magazine, East Coast Equestrian is a connection point for the people, businesses, events, and organizations that keep the horse world moving.
Made by horse people, for horse people.
Awards
East Coast Equestrian has won 18 national honors at the American Horse Publications Annual Awards Program since 2002, including 1st place awards in 2002 and 2008, and strong 2nd places in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.
In 2013, Pennsylvania Equestrian (as it was then called) placed 2nd in the General Excellence State or Regional Publications, earning comments such as “this newspaper sports a bold and inviting logo”, “some of the most tasteful full-page ads [the judge] had seen”, and that it is a “well-designed, very valid publication dedicated in every way to the Pennsylvania Equestrian”. Articles have also won a US Equestrian Federation Pegasus award and an AIM award.
Our History
East Coast Equestrian began in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1993, when founder Stephanie Shertzer Lawson created Pennsylvania Equestrian to promote the first Horse Farms Open House. Before websites and digital maps, visitors needed a printed guide to find the participating farms. The first issue was a simple four-page publication complete with hand-drawn maps.
What began as a practical event guide quickly became something more. Lawson enjoyed creating the publication and recognized the need for a dedicated voice for the region’s horse community. She began publishing quarterly and, within a year, left her full-time job to build Pennsylvania Equestrian and Shertzer/Lawson Marketing and Publishing.
As other regional horse publications disappeared, Pennsylvania Equestrian continued to grow. On its 25th anniversary in January 2018, it expanded its coverage, readership, and distribution and became East Coast Equestrian, reflecting its broader role throughout the Mid-Atlantic.
In 2025, Brooke Knight Warner acquired the publication through Knight Warner Media, beginning its next chapter while honoring the foundation Lawson built. Since then, East Coast Equestrian has introduced a refreshed look, strengthened its print and digital presence, expanded its reach from New York through northern Florida, and begun increasing its annual publishing schedule.
What started as a four-page guide has grown into an award-winning regional media brand serving horse people through stories, news, information, event partnerships, business connections, and community initiatives.
Serving horse people since 1993.
Meet The Staff
East Coast Equestrian relies on both fulltime and freelance staff to keep the newspaper running smoothly.
Brooke Knight Warner
Brooke Knight Warner is the owner and publisher of East Coast Equestrian, the independent regional equestrian media brand serving horse people since 1993. A lifelong horse person, business operator, thought leader, and media transformation expert, Warner brings deep equestrian roots and more than 25 years of media experience to the magazine’s next chapter.
Her vision for East Coast Equestrian is rooted in the belief that being a horse person is more than a hobby, sport, lifestyle, profession, passion, set of chores, or luxury market segment. It is a shared identity — one that connects competitors and pleasure riders, trainers and barn families, breeders, spectators, wannabes, former riders, those who hope to ride again, backyard owners, adult amateurs, re-riders, young riders, lifelong horse lovers, businesses, farms, events, rescues, and lesson programs. Together, they create a community.
That identity is built on devotion and curiosity: the smell of sweet feed, the sound of a nicker, the rhythm of a gallop, the instinct to look twice when a trailer goes by, the willingness to scrape together lesson money, throw hay, clean stalls, fall, get up, get muddy, and come back the next day. It is the physical, spiritual, and intellectual pursuit of better partnership, better care, better performance, and deeper understanding. The barn as sanctuary. The horse as partner.
Warner’s career began in equestrian publishing with The Horse of Delaware Valley, Practical Horseman, EquiSearch.com, and early digital strategy connected to The Chronicle of the Horse, before expanding into audience growth, revenue transformation, product strategy, and sustainable community media.
Acquiring East Coast Equestrian through Knight Warner Media in 2025 brought those paths together. Under her leadership, the publication has refreshed its look, strengthened print and digital reach, expanded from New York through northern Florida, begun expanding to 10 issues annually, and launched No Horse Hungry.
Her goal is to build East Coast Equestrian as the regional media brand that reflects, serves, and reinforces horse people as a shared identity — made by horse people, for horse people.
Phyllis Hurdleston
Advertising Sales Manager Phyllis Hurdleston joined the East Coast Equestrian staff in July 2014. Phyllis and her husband Chris are both originally from Moorestown, NJ and have lived in Lancaster for 28 years. They’ve raised two children in Manheim Township, Scott and Cece, 30 and 28, who both currently reside and work in the Lancaster area.
Phyllis graduated college with a degree in Communications/Advertising and has been in the advertising and marketing field since graduating. Starting her career at North American Publishing in Philadelphia, she sold advertising and marketing services for a variety of trade publications and attended many trade shows. For Stratton Publishing & Marketing she sold advertising in a magazine called Learning by Design, an Architectural Design showcase of elementary through college/university school projects distributed to the education market. She’s worked at Equestrian International tack shop in New Holland, and at the former Stateline Tack in Lancaster.
Phyllis was a former 4-H leader, has ridden and shown horses since she was 8 years old. She keeps her horse Baylee, a TB/Paint mare in New Holland and she enjoys riding her in paper chases across the state.
Suzanne Bush
Mrs. Bush has been a regular freelance contributor for East Coast Equestrian for 18 years. After 30 years in the newspaper industry, earning titles such as Associate Publisher of the Courier-Post in Camden, NJ and then President and Publisher of the Reporter in Lansdale, PA, she decided to intertwine her passion for horses with her writing career. In addition to writing and raising honeybees, Mrs. Bush currently owns a former racehorse named Burt, two dogs named Alice and Lola and a cat, Bella.
Marcella Peyre-Ferry
Mrs. Peyre-Ferry is a regular contributor to East Coast Equestrian as well as a reporter for Lancaster Newspapers, and Chester County Press. A regular columnist for Saddle and Bridle Magazine, she is also a contributor to Driving Digest. After years of competing in a variety of disciplines, including dressage, sidesaddle, hunters, and western, Mrs. Peyre-Ferry now successfully shows model horses. In her free time, she and her husband do civil war era dance demonstrations and balls with the Victorian Dance Ensemble. They also travel to assist their younger son, David, with his work as a professional sword swallower.
Lois Szymanski
Lois Szymanski has been writing for publication for over 30 years, often tapping into her love of horses. She worked several years at a Thoroughbred farm and was a US Pony Club mom. She has written articles for magazines like Horse Illustrated, Horse Power, Young Rider, Equine Images, and Animal Product News and was a correspondent for the Carroll County Times newspaper for 31 years. She is the author of 28 books for children and adults, most of them horse stories. Lois lives in Westminster, Maryland with her husband and her two miniature horses. Visit her on the web at www.loisszymanski.com
Amy Worden
Amy Worden is an award-winning journalist who spent 15 years covering state and national politics for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her career in print and broadcast includes stints at the Associated Press, The Washington Post and Fox News. She was also the founder of Philly Dawg animal blog at the Inquirer. Currently she teaches journalism at Dickinson College and also freelances for The Washington Post.
Amy is a lifelong equestrian who competed regionally for almost two decades with her Morgan gelding Twilight in three-day eventing, equitation and hunter/jumper events, including at A-rated Morgan shows. Currently, she and her 11-year-old rescue Belgian, Chloe, compete in dressage and pleasure shows. Chloe is the two-time draft horse barrel racing champion of the Pennsylvania Farm Show.
Debbie Reid
Debbie Reid is the Advertising Manager at East Coast Equestrian. She has been with the company since the beginning after working with Stephanie Lawson at the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau. Ms. Reid has lived in the area for 30+ years and takes a strong interest in the success of small businesses. She is a mother of three and grandmother of three and, despite the teases, she is the only one in the office who does not ride.
Note: We were sad to see Debbie Reid retire in 2025, she remains a helpful resource and a part of the larger East Coast Equestrian.
