‘We’re all pretty proud’: Equine Guardians taking care of displaced Palatine Stables horses

Behind a weathered, split-rail fence skirting a solitary gravel driveway, Cadence Gehrke reaches into a clear bag and feeds carrots to a gray Appaloosa mare.

It’s feeding time for Tinker Bell and her cream-colored leopard-spotted Appaloosa gelding companion Fuzzy at Birch Hill Farm in Wauconda.

The farm, with its peaceful pasture teeming with tall grass and wildflowers, is where the two horses are spending their twilight years.

They were among the roughly two dozen school horses and ponies displaced following the controversial closing of the Palatine Stables in late 2024. Now they are among 17 under the care of the nonprofit group Gehrke started, Equine Guardians.

The organization, which is run by former instructors, boarders and longtime riders, has an online fundraising site. Several horses are listed on the website, equineguardians.org.

Equine Guardians is also holding a reunion and fundraiser from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday at SOUL Harbour Ranch in Barrington. Proceeds will go toward the horses’ care.

The reunion will bring together people from the stables’ past, including riders, instructors and former employees.

Tinker Bell and Fuzzy were fixtures at the stables for many years.

“If you were a kid starting at horseback riding, you would have ridden Tinker Bell or Fuzzy at some point,” Gehrke said.

The 17 Equine Guardians horses are split among three sites. There are eight at Birch Hill Farm, another seven horses are at a site in Wauconda and two at a location in Gurnee. Most of the horses are retired.

Gehrke, the organization’s president, began riding at the stables at age 8. At 14, she started working there. She eventually bought and boarded the horses there as well.

“I started grooming the horses and bonding with the horses, and I love them a lot,” she said. “It was a really great community, and then they decided to close, so I felt that I had a moral obligation to make sure these horses didn’t go somewhere where they wouldn’t be loved and cared for. So that’s why I started Equine Guardians.”

She recently bought a 10-acre property in Woodstock. She plans to turn it into a retirement sanctuary that would house the retired horses from Palatine Stables on one site.

The dust has finally settled on the controversy of closing Palatine Stables.

The Palatine Park District bought the property near Northwest Highway and Dundee Road for $1.2 million in 1989. It served as the hub for a tightly knit equestrian community, offering lessons, therapy and boarding for more than 30 years.

But in May 2024, the park board voted, with one notable dissent, to close the stables, citing the need for $2.6 million in repairs, something critics of the move disputed.

The dissenter, board member Sue Gould, said the decision to close needed public discussion — a motion appeared on the board’s agenda and decided at the same meeting without debate.

She said the district received one repair bid and no bids for either tearing down or rebuilding the facility.

“We don’t normally handle things that way,” she said.

The horses were ultimately displaced and the site eventually leveled.

Palatine Park District Executive Director Benjamin Rea said in 2025 the horses were donated to good homes.

“They went to new stables with new owners,” he said.

Not all of the horses wound up under the care of Equine Guardians. Some went to private owners. In one instance, two of the older horses died while at an equestrian sanctuary in Campton Hills.

“It created obviously a very difficult situation, because there was a lot of pressure to figure out a safe place for the horses to go,” said Elle Haferkamp, the vice president of Equine Guardians. “They had a lot of horses. You’re talking about moving multiple herds.”

Haferkamp’s relationship with Palatine Stables began as a young rider. She owned one of the school horses, Cole, who recently passed away following a series of medical issues. She said the ponies in particular had bonded and needed to stay together when the stables closed.

She credited Gehrke and Anna Van Gilder, the head trainer at Palatine Stables who is now owner of Van Gilder Equine, for handling the transition. Van Gilder is the horses’ caregiver and works closely with Fox Valley Equine, the former veterinarian at Palatine Stables.

Haferkamp said the goal with Equine Guardians is to provide the horses with the best care, so they can enjoy their lives.

That is no simple matter. In addition to food, it involves getting them shoes, medications and visits from a vet.

“We have already spent over 16 grand just on vet bills for these horses, just this year,” Gehrke said.

She noted a few of them still give lessons, adding a lot of clients at Palatine Stables followed Van Gilder to her business.

All of the horses have different needs, Gehrke said. Some have stalls, while Fuzzy and Tinker Bell live outside.

“They have this huge couple-acre field, which is lovely, because of them being older, keeping them moving and not living in a stall is really important to their health,” she added. “I think we’re all pretty proud of where they ended up.”