From streets to the saddle: At-risk teens find new outlet in country-life, horses

The Double D ranch is hoping to help kids take back the reins of their life – through the ones on a horse.

Seeing a bunch of riders on horseback making their way down some of the busiest streets in Rocky Mount can be enough to make you do a double take.

But this is more than just a joyride.

“The purpose of the Double D ranch is to try to convert our young people from the streets to the saddle, from the pavement to the pasture,” ranch owner Dennis Harvey said. “And just to show them a new way of life.”

Harvey grew up in foster care in Washington DC, where he saw firsthand how poverty and lack of opportunities could draw young people down the wrong path.

After starting a horse farm in nearby Enfield, Harvey made it his mission to give inner-city kids in Rocky Mount the outlet he wished he had growing up.

“It was helping to prevent them from being in the streets, being a statistic, being in the jail cells or being in the squad car,” Harvey said. “And it gave them exposure to a new way of life: the country style of life.”

Harvey will take his horses into parks, neighborhoods and even stores in Rocky Mount, wherever he thinks he can make a difference.

“The fact that it’s young Black males on a horse, and not a young Black male on the news camera for a murder, it blows their mind,” Harvey said of the reaction he gets from people on the street. “It’s a different type of ‘Whoa, wow, are you serious?’”

Harvey said after seeing the horses up close, some of the young guys get hooked.

It was enough to make 20-year-old Rocky Mount native Justin Curtis head out to the ranch in Enfield to ride for himself.

“Yeah it’s fun, I just really got into it because he said I could join the club, and I just got on the horse yesterday,” Curtis told WRAL News. “That’s what everybody needs to do, drop the guns, get on the saddle.”

For weeks, many families have faced a new challenge in the skyrocketing cost of gas.

Harvey hoped these horses could be a light to guide them into a new lifestyle that keeps getting better as you go.

“I was just so excited to be on four legs instead of four wheels, because gas prices are outrageous,” Harvey said. “And that’s another burden for our city, especially for our low-income families who are already in the midst of struggling.”