Dallas, Kristen & Disney. Photo Credit: Suzanne Bush
Temple Grandin, the renowned author, college professor, Keynote speaker at the 2025 Pennsylvania Farm Show and advocate for the humane treatment of animals, believes that animals—especially horses—have the power to transform lives. “Horses can help us to develop a sense of trust, empathy and compassion,” she wrote.
Indeed. Those special powers are in high demand as the world grows more unpredictable every day.
Kristen de Marco is a fan of horses and their remarkable healing powers. She believes horses can be guides, leading people to find their own special powers of forgiveness, strength and understanding. She recognized that horses also have the power to heal those who have experienced trauma. Her organization, Gateway HorseWorks, serves communities as diverse as inmates preparing to leave prison, victims of human trafficking, children in residential treatment, people in recovery and veterans. These often marginalized and vulnerable communities are the focus of Gateway HorseWorks, communities of individuals who would likely not have access to either horses or the innovative programs that de Marco and her team provide.
She grew up riding and training horses, but “I stepped away from them when it was time to go to college. You know how you are supposed to ‘get a real job,’ which doesn’t include horses.” But real life has ways of changing one’s perspective. “I found my way back to horses as I was asking myself all those big life questions,” she explains, “when you go through a kind of chasm in your life.” For her, that chasm was her divorce. “I heard about horses working in mental health settings, and I was just really fascinated. They were doing what I always knew I could do.”
The Need is Great
De Marco achieved certification as an Equine Specialist in the EAGALA model (Equine Assisted Growth and Learning) in 2011. “I started a little business and then quickly realized that so many people that were in need of innovative mental health treatment couldn’t afford access to it,” she says. She started a non-profit after a probation officer reached out to her, looking for a program to help one of his clients. That was in 2015, and she didn’t have a permanent place for her horses, or even a staff. Today Gateway HorseWorks has a permanent location—a 15-acre farm in Malvern, PA.
The staff, which includes clinical social workers and equine specialists, provides an array of services at the farm and at other locations. “We have a lot of our clients come here, obviously, this is our flagship location. But we also have a permanent pasture on site at the Chester County Prison.” She says Gateway has run a re-entry program there since 2019, providing participants innovative mental health treatment as they transition back to their communities. “They go through a process based on determining what their own goals are for going home,” she says. “Things like regaining trust of family members and finding confidence again.
“We recently moved one of our programs called Leading the Way to Fox Chase Farm in Philadelphia.” It’s accessible to the School District of Philadelphia and serves middle school students who are receiving emotional support. “We ran the program here in Malvern for two years and obviously accessibility became a challenge with getting all the way out here.” She says they bring the horses to Fox Chase Farm several times a week. “There are six to 10 kids per cohort, and we’re working with 12 schools this school year. The students come for six sessions to experience a curriculum that we wrote.” She says the curriculum is based on social emotional learning, and focuses on things like physical safety, emotional safety, boundaries and trust.
“We’re hoping to expand our offerings to include some of our other programs from mental health,” she says. The goal is to see more kids across different grades, and ultimately to have a career technical education program. “We’ve expanded a lot of our programming with children through Youth and Family Services and Juvenile Probation in the last five years,” de Marco explains. “We’re now contracted in addition to Chester County, in Montgomery and Delaware Counties.”
Horses As Therapists
There are six horses at Gateway, and de Marco says she has promised each of them that they will spend the rest of their lives on the farm. Many of the horses suffered abuse before they came to Gateway, and they bring their own traumas to the job.
Nova, a pony they think to be 18 years old, was pulled from the auction pens. “She has a lot of ongoing health issues, and unfortunately, she was not well cared-for before her owners decided to sell her. She has had two colic surgeries and multiple bouts of laminitis,” de Marco says while nuzzling Nova’s fluffy mane. “But she’s our little Energizer Bunny.”
She says that when clients hear Nova’s story, they identify with her. “We were recently doing a session with some folks that are in an inpatient facility for drug and alcohol recovery,” she says, “and they were like ‘if I were her I’d be so mad to be separated (from other horses and her friends),’ and you know we were able to process how Nova deals with that anger. Like exploring what is that like for her?”
These sessions are facilitated by licensed mental health practitioners and an equine specialist certified in the EAGALA model, de Marco says. “They utilize these interactions with the horses as a base for furthering the therapeutic goals.”
Out in the pasture de Marco introduces Rimtiana, an Argentinian thoroughbred. “She came to us from New Bolton Center.” She was a broodmare and could no longer carry foals. “They were going to euthanize her. You know, because she couldn’t fall into a more traditional job, you and I both know that humane euthanasia in that situation is not a bad thing,” de Marco says. “Because a horse could get into the pipeline and then suffer a much worse fate than death, unfortunately.” She stood before Rimtiana, in the freezing wind and patted her head. “Being able to have programs like ours that are unmounted for horses that can’t fall into a more traditional riding-based program is really important. We make sure that there are programs where horses get to just be themselves.”
And there is Willow, a 28-year-old who raced for eight years as a trotter, and who is featured in a book by Martin Clunes, called “Meetings With Remarkable Animals.”
And there are the boys, Dewey, Disney and Dallas, each one a gentle reminder of the purpose of de Marco’s organization.
Fund-Raising is Part of the Job
De Marco says that Gateway receives funding through foundations and donors, and they hold fund-raisers throughout the year. There is even a documentary film about Gateway, called Healing in the Open, and there’s a link to the film on Gateway’s website. To find more information about programs, events and how to help, the website is www.gatewayhorseworks.org.