An equine therapy practice struggles to stay afloat in the face of losing its location.

When the Pebble Beach Equestrian Center was about to be shuttered in June, ahead of its demolition on Sept. 10, there were five horses left that needed new homes. The center’s managers turned to the Equine Healing Collaborative asking if they’d take the horses. Executive Director Jennifer Fenton took all five.

Now Fenton’s equine therapy business is facing its own possible closure.

EHC’s 56-acre location on Highway 68 is up for sale, with an asking price of $6.3 million. EHC just completed two years of a five-year lease and they had hoped to be in a position to purchase it by then, Fenton says. Unless they can come up with enough money to buy it now, they’ll likely have to close.

“We absolutely need to purchase this property. We need to stay here for the community,” Fenton says. The program sees between 500 to 700 people a month between its large Salinas location and a smaller location in Felton. Some clients as young as 10 are experiencing suicidal ideation, she says.

“Moving is not an option, considering how many rescues we have on property,” she says. “It would be incredibly difficult to find a location to accommodate us as well as the number of people who come here for services.”

Fenton has mounted a fundraising campaign in hopes of raising at least $1 million.

Meanwhile, the options for equine-related businesses continue to shrink in the county. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual Census of Agriculture, the population of “horses, ponies, mules, burros and donkeys” in Monterey County decreased by over 200 from 2017 to 2022, from 571 to 343.