In the gallery: Sara Fennessy with American Saddlebred, “Night, Night Nicky.” photo by Vougeot Media. Sara with her parents, Karen and Lonny Powell. Sara with the rest of the HFF staff from the 2020 Conservation Summit.
The Board of Directors of Horse Farms Forever is excited to announce that Sara Powell Fennessy has returned as Director of Community Affairs.
Please join us in welcoming Sara Fennessy back to Horse Farms Forever in the role she defined and filled so well – Director of Community Affairs. Sara joined HFF in 2019, when we were just getting started, and served with distinction. After a year’s hiatus, where she served at the College of Central Florida, she’s back to once again head up membership and community outreach.
“Sara is keenly focused on advancing our mission to preserve the character and culture that horses and horse farms make unique to Ocala and Marion County. Throughout her previous tenure at HFF she brought a generational understanding of the equine industry and a true love for the community. We’re thrilled to have her back,” says Bernie Little, HFF President.
Sara grew up in an equine centric household. A lifelong horse show and racing enthusiast, she devoted much of time as a hunter-jumper competitor while she attended school in Lexington, Kentucky. During her almost 10 years in Marion County, Florida, she has devoted herself to a career of outreach, communication, management, and promotion in the local community and equine industry. Today she owns pleasure horses and is an avid trail rider.
Sara competing her former show horse “Ooh La La” at the Kentucky Horse Park. Photo credit: Shawn McMillen.
A Horseman’s Legacy
A fifth-generation horsewoman, Sara has a lifelong family history focused primarily within the Thoroughbred and show horse sectors. Her parents and grandparents owned and trained racehorses and show horses. Sara’s grandfather was a Quarter Horse jockey and manager of the Jockey’s Guild until his passing, and her father is a lifelong member of the Thoroughbred world and industry executive. Her mother was a Saddlebred competitor and now spends much of her current time dedicated to her pleasure horses.
An honor’s graduate from the College of Central Florida, Sara’s educational background is in Paralegal studies.
Passion has led me to my purpose. My work with Horse Farms Forever has been deeply fulfilling on so many levels. Like so many others here in Marion County, the horse industry is my family’s livelihood and legacy. It is a gift and a privilege to advocate for the very thing that makes our community so unique and special.
I feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to serve alongside the accomplished staff and dedicated Board of Directors as we work to preserve our global brand as Horse Capital of the World®. I am beyond excited for what the future holds and look forward to all that we will accomplish.
It is the vision and mission of Horse Farms Forever to inspire conservation of horse farms through education, awareness and idea exchange so as to preserve natural pasture land focusing on horses and their habitats, to protect soil and water on which they depend, and minimize land use conflicts
in Marion County, Florida.
We are watchful of government and others to preserve and protect horse farms and farmland for future generations - especially in the Farmland Preservation Area. We are neither anti-growth nor anti-development; we encourage urban growth to remain inside the Urban Growth Boundary.
Horse Farms Forever® is a Florida not-for-profit corporation registered with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services as a charitable organization and approved as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) corporation by the Internal Revenue Service. Horse Farms Forever® does not have a political mission. Our status as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization does not allow us to participate or intervene in political activities. The organization will neither advocate on behalf of political candidates nor advocate for the passage of legislation.
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This is fantastic news.Sara is the perfect person to be the “face” of HFF and we welcome her back with open arms and grateful hearts.