The Healing Power Of Horses

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298 – March/April, 2025

By Minae Kroeze

Within inner-city Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, among tall brick buildings and city sounds, stands a sanctuary. Inside that sanctuary exists a long-standing group of Philly horsemen who have been there for generations, changing the directions of people’s lives through horses.

The legacy of those horsemen has been brought to light recently by the Netflix film, Concrete Cowboy. The movie is about 15-year-old Cole, who gets expelled from his school in Detroit and is sent to live with his estranged father, one of the black urban cowboys of Philadelphia. It’s there in the community of Fletcher Street Stables where Cole discovers the safe haven and sanctuary of horses his father has always known, and it changes the trajectory of Cole’s life.

The moving Netflix film is also based on the future home of the Philadelphia Urban Riding Academy (PURA), run by horse trainer and Executive Director Erin Brown, also fondly known in the community as the “Concrete Cowgirl.”

For Erin, Philly’s Fletcher Street Stables was the birthplace of her career, and it has become the launchpad for her larger mission: to preserve the legacy of the Black cowboy and create a hub for the community.

The Healing Power of Horses

Click here to read the complete article
298 – March/April, 2025