NCAL faces backlash over equine center sale

The barn, which has recently been sustained primarily by a co-operative that boards its horses at the facility, was to close by the end of the April, but the NCAL board recently signaled it may extend that timeline.

Du Preez said his organization attempted to create programming centered around the equine center that included therapeutic riding and youth-centered activities, but they were ultimately unable to build a sustainable operation. The barn was never a center for rescued horses, and Du Preez said that NCAL needed to focus on sheltering cats and dogs awaiting adoption.

“(The equine center) was obviously a community resource, but we ended it because it wasn’t aligned with our mission, and we were actually losing some money per horse,” Du Preez said.

This argument and Du Preez’s handling of the equine center itself came under fierce criticism, starting with pushback on the executive director’s assertion that the equine center didn’t align with the organization’s mission.

“NCAL’s mission is not ‘finding homes for at-risk dogs and cats’, it is ‘to promote the compassionate and responsible relationship between humans and animals,’” argued former NCAL executive director Tracy Goldfine.

Goldfine was angered by both Du Preez’s statements regarding the organization’s reasons for selling the equine center and upset with the News & Citizen for not reaching out to her or others critical of the sale for comment.

Though she announced her decision to step down in 2018, Goldfine stayed on with the organization as executive director until Du Preez was hired in spring 2023. She helped facilitate the acquisition of the former Ryder Brook Horse Farm after an anonymous donor’s $445,000 donation in 2019.

Goldfine claimed that Du Preez was misrepresenting the financial sustainability of the equine center, which she was said was successful until last year when the barn was not filled to capacity and didn’t run any summer camps.

She said she’s been supportive of Du Preez since her departure but could not “allow the community to take as fact what was printed” in an article published in both the News & Citizen and Stowe Reporter and was compelled to speak out. (“Animal league puts equine center up for sale,” April 11, 2024)

Du Preez called the personal criticism levied against him by Goldfine and others as “nasty and honestly very unnecessary.”

He also pointed to NCAL’s publicly available financials as evidence that the equine center was losing money. Both the shelter and adoption program and the equine center cost more to run than they make.

In 2020, the first year the organization reported financial information regarding the equine operation, the barn ran a net loss of over $46,000; in 2022, NCAL claimed to have a gap of $168,000 between the center’s revenue and expenses.

The shelter and adoption program recorded a net loss of over $330,000 in 2020, a deficit that fell to just over $271,000 in 2022. The organization as a whole was in the black until 2022 when its expenses rose to $1 million for the first time in recent history and its revenue, which topped over $969,000, fell just short.

Kristina von Trapp Frame, a legacy donor along with her family and a member of the cooperative, expressed her frustration with what she perceived as a lack of transparency by the NCAL board of directors and the way it communicated with donors and equine center co-op members about the closure of the barn operation.

“I was just frustrated when all of a sudden, we had one-month notice,” she said.

According to Frame, the barn manager at the equine center had been given two-weeks’ notice at the end of March, a termination timeline that was only extended after she inquired as to who would care for the remaining horses when she left.

Du Preez did not respond to a question about this issue.

Frame was able to make plans to board her horses on her own property but was hurt by Du Preez’s comments that many of the co-op members would be able to do so. She said she boarded her horse with the cooperative at the equine center not out of necessity but out of a shared sense of community.

“Everybody that I work with there, we like each other,” Frame said. “Barns are such healthy places, especially for girls and women to be empowered, so I’m going to miss my friends, and my horse is going to miss her friends.”

The uncertain future of the barn, Frame said, was particularly a loss for those who didn’t own horses but wanted to enjoy the benefits of riding.

After being denied access to the NCAL board’s April meeting, along with other donors and co-op members who had been interested in attending, Frame is asking for transparency when it comes to the sale of the property. The donor who gifted the property to NCAL has, according to those familiar with the situation, expressed a desire to buy the property.

The NCAL board and Du Preez have both said they would like to see the equine center property remain a horse barn, and Du Preez said that there has been “significant interest from potential buyers,” including from the equine center donor.

Following news of the sale and the backlash, the NCAL board released a statement on behalf of the entire 12-person board, which reiterated its support for Du Preez, and asked the community to refrain from attacking him personally.

“We respectfully ask that all further dialogue refrain from personal comments like we’ve seen aimed at the NCAL Executive Director on social media and via email,” the board said. “These attacks are deeply upsetting to us, are counterproductive to our shared mission and community, and will not be tolerated moving forward.”