Share Barn Related Ghost Stories

[JstMyLuck3]

I thought it would be fun to hear anyone's ghost stories (horse-related of course) since it is that time of year :winkgrin:

I know there must be some people w/ haunted properties out there!

I have some of my own...

A golf course/restaurant where I worked during my summers in college was built a mile down the road from Saratoga Race Course. It was built maybe 9 years ago over what used to be a well known racehorse owner's old property which housed his home and stables (I'm talking in maybe early 1900's). He was also a part of the mob, you know that "scene" when Saratoga was the happening place for the wealthy to vacation from NYC. Apparently when he died, his ashes were spread in the pond on the property which the outdoor terrace overlooks. When I first started working there, the bartender told me how there were 2 separate occassions when he was closing up shop at around 1-2 in the morning, he put all of the barstools up on the bar so the cleaning staff could properly sweep. He exited the room for something, then went back in and the stools were all back down on the floor as if he never touched them. Also, workers have said to see a white ghost walk across the 18th hole next to the pond late at night. Creepy, huh?!

[arabhorse2]

I'll play. :D

This actually happened to me. It wasn't hearsay, or a friend of a friend's cousin's aunt's brother. ;)

I used to live on a small farm in MD. Conny was boarded there as well. The owner's wife (they lived on the property) swore the place was haunted. Meh, okay, whatever.

I was cleaning stalls one day when all the horses were out of the barn. Lovely day, early November. No wind, sunny, and just chilly enough to make physical labor seem more like fun than work.

I was pulling a loaded wheel barrow out of one stall, when I saw a stall door at the end of the barn open, and then close again. This stall door in particular you had to drag open, because it tended to fall in toward the stall.

There were no cats in the barn with me, and that door was too heavy for them to have moved it anyway.

At another time, I was watering the horses and it felt like I was playing tug of war with someone on the other end of the hose. I could see where the hose was being pulled, but couldn't see anyone or anything.

I have a lot more stories about that farm, so yeah, I think I agree with the owner's wife now! :lol:

The only thing 'haunting' my farm in VA are various rodentia, and some black snakes.

[analise]

The barn I go to is bordered on one side by an interstate and apparently down in the woods between the farm and said interstate, a body was found some years ago. Some time after that, a mannequin was found in around the same spot (still there, I think, they tell me you can see parts of it sticking out of the underbrush in wintertime). Kinda weird.

The barn owner swears to me she thinks there's a ghost on the property and I have to agree with her. Being in the arena alone at night is pretty creepy, at least, lights on or off.

[Saidapal]

I'll play. I love ghost stories.

My old mare (28) and my young gelding (6) were best of friends since the day he arrived at my farm when he was 1. Sadly I had to have her put down last year. Every day for the first 2 weeks after she passed he would come out of his stall and go straight to hers just like he had been doing for years to wait for her to join him. Broke my heart and still does when I think about it.

When she had been gone for about 2-3 months I started seeing shadows out of the corner of my eyes and hearing her joints pop so I knew it was her LOL, and always the gelding would be somewhere in the vacinity. After a day or 2 I dreamed about her, and in the dream she was young and beautiful again. The very next morning the gelding came out of his stall and went straight to hers just like he used to. It was the last time he ever did that and I haven't seen her since.

I swear she had come to say goodbye to both of us.

[Spooky Alter]

A farm that I boarded at as a kid was certainly haunted:

On more than one occasion, I saw a white horse running around the property. Well after dark, said horse had a glow about him (?). The first few times I saw this horse, I did a grey horse head count in the barn/pastures-all accounted for. This happened SEVERAL times over the years.

Adults and kids alike would hear horses in the aisle-brick pavers, made a very distinct sound. Once again, all horses would be in stalls and accounted for.

I have more, but will have to get back later....

[Lori T]

My barn has a hay loft. I have never felt comfortable going up there. A co-workers husband sees dead people and came out one day and confirmed a ghost.
Well, it seems the ghost is a poltergeist. I wrap the hose up nice and neat every night. Every morning, it has a knot or 2 in it.
About a month ago, I actually heard it, it was making stomping noises above the tackroom. Normally, my horses do not like it if I go up to the hayloft if they are in as it makes alot of noise, and they will run out into their runs until I come down. Well this morning, none were fazed by the noise, eating their breakfast, totally oblivious to the noise. My cats were all accounted for. I was tempted to go see what was making the noise but chickened out!
While it has a humor to it, it is helpful. Things that are missing, like fly masks, have a way of turning up, hanging nice and neat on the hooks. I used to think it was my daughter until it happened after she moved to college.
And, the hayloft has windows that overlook my wash rack. I always feel like I am being watched when in the wash rack.

And at a barn I used to manage, the barn owner had mirrors all along the perimeter of the fence, facing outwards. Apparently that keeps the ghosts away. I was at the barn very late, braiding for a show the next day. As I was finishing up, all of a sudden, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, I got very cold, and I had the sensation to LEAVE NOW! Trust me, I did!

[Spooky Alter]

One night (this was a good 15 years ago) a parent came into the lounge to get their kid. There were maybe 6 of us in the lounge-it was normal for our parents to leave us at the barn until later at night. Anyway, the mother asked if one of us was going to put the horse in the indoor away. We responed that there was not a horse in the indoor that we knew of-this was not a large enough barn for someone else to have been there without us knowing about it. Mom says there there was certainly a grey horse in the indoor when she walked into the barn....We all walked to the indoor-no grey horse.


This farm was always making noises, it was quite normal to hear stall doors opening and closing..when you knew there was no one else in the barn.

Oddly enough, sometimes there was an over-all creepy vibe at this farm-sometimes. Sometimes, you felt completly comfortable-and sometimes this overwhelming YIKES would hit you like a ton of bricks.

[gloriginger]

In college I worked on a guest ranch as a wrangler AKA - trail guide. Four of us lived in a cabin on the ranch that was from the old homesteading days. It had minor modern conviences, but it was very, very rustic- propane fridge, very, very limited hydroelectic that allowed us one very dim light at a time- running water- but from a stream and a hot water tank that gave about a 12 bathtub of luke warm water. Rustic for sure! Plus it was 7 miles off a dirt road, abutting 30,000 acres of national forest. So if someone was coming in a car- you would hear them about 3 miles away- see the lights about 1 mile away.

Anyway- one night I was there alone painting and I got that feeling I was being watched- hair on the back of my neck stood up and I got cold. But nothing more than that- just feeling watched.

When my roomies got home I asked them if they ever "felt" anything- 1 did - the other 2 didn't. Said we were crazy etc. just freaked out because we were in the middle of the woods.

A few nights later one of the nay sayers woke us up in the middle of the night- said someone was sitting on her chest and she saw two men in her room. FREAKY!

Then another night we had some of the staff over from the main lodge for a party. We had a rule that if you drank- you stayed because it was such a dark winding road home. So a few of the guys who worked in the kitchen were sleeping in the main room downstairs. When I got up at 5 AM to go round up the horses I found one of the guys from the kitchen (from Oakland, CA) sleeping under a big chest in the dinning room. I woke him up to find out why he was under there and he said in the middle of the night he woke up to 3 cowboy dudes standing over him. He said later he'd never been so scared in his life. He wouldn't come back out there after that night.

Then in the fall a group of hunters stayed there- and they had the same complaint- 3 men standing over them - or one of then trying to sit on their chest. Ghosts definitely liked to intimidate people who were "tough."

I finally got the story from the owners of the property- the house we stayed in was the gathering place for all the homesteaders in the area. One night there was a bar fight and three men died.

On that same property there was another homesteader who died--there was a small one room cabin in the middle of some out buildings (root cellar- wood shed etc.) Apparently in a bad winter storm he cut his leg with an axe and died of gangrine. His wife walked 26 miles into town with her baby and lived. Most of the homesteaders didn't make it through the winter, there was just so much snow- I can't even imagine!!! There was a feeling of saddness when you walked around those buildings, but I don't know if that was just because I knew the story, or because of the feeling run down old buildings.

Anyway- I guess the cowboy ghosts didn't feel threatened by me because I lived in that same cabin the next summer alone, and never had a scary experience. I would get that cold feeling every now and then, but I always felt very safe there.

[Watermark Farm]

GHOST STORY #1

Years ago I boarded at a barn where all the horses spooked badly at a certain corner near the entrance to the arena. It was a real problem and several people had been dumped badly in this corner. A boarder had a pet psychic out to work with her horse. The psychic knew nothing about this spooky spot but said "He hates that corner, the one with the dead pig. The dead pig thinks it's funny to run out and scare the horses."

GHOST STORY #2

I lived on site at a big eventing barn and was responsible for dealing with nighttime emergencies. A horse colicked horribly and died of a rupture. It was a gruesome death and very disturbing for all involved. Not long after, I would often hear hoofbeats on the concrete aisleways, late at night. I'd go to investigate, thinking a horse was loose. Never found a horse. I thought it was my imagination.

Later, other people also reported hearing this noise and investigating at night. We decided it was the ghost of the horse, Oliver. I think people tried to talk to the ghost. Not long after, the night footsteps stopped.

[JstMyLuck3]

People have some really great stories!

I have another one... the barn where I rode for around 15 years, I would feed the 30+ horses everyday after high school and often be the last one to leave at night (waiting for my dad to pick me up, pre-driver's liscense). I was sitting in the office one night w/ the door shut because I could hear the coyotes howling in the old corn field that my trainer turned into a huge jumping/hunt course. No one else was at the barn, I had turned all of the lights off in the indoor arena and adjacent barn. The office has a huge picture window looking towards the doors to the said barn. The doors are SO heavy, I always had to lean on them with all of my weight in order to open and close them. Sitting there, I watched w/ my own eyes the door open about 3 feet, then close. Loud noise and everything. From then on I was SO scared to be in that place w/ not enough lights on. I would literally run out of the barn at night after turning the lights out.

Also, the assistant trainer was there at night alone as well (both of these incidents happend in the Fall), and she walked into the back barn where the lights were flashing on and off and the horses were all running circles in their stalls.

[Woodland]

I was shopping at Kroger and saw that the 2' animated ghost was 25% off! I bought one and brought it hone for the kids. Unbeknown too me they decided to string him up between the beams in what use to be our breeding shed. We have a huge fall party there every year and they were decorating....Anyway I went in there to get something out of my farm medicine cabinet and it went off. It is a motion sensor and when it goes off it flies back and forth and screams and moans and lights flash. It was clear dark when I went in the building - it scared the freaking crap out of me!!!!!!!!

Otherwise i do not believe in ghosts so the rest is hogwash too me.

Here is a few paranormal sites that claim to have actual ghosts - I dunno but you have to look close and listen with the sound way up. Give it a go and tell me what you think - links in my signature...

[arabhorse2]

Otherwise i do not believe in ghosts so the rest is hogwash too me.

Woodland, I used to have the same opinion.

Once freaky things start happening to you and not someone else telling you about them, you'll change your tune. I know I sure did.

The two things I mentioned were just two small incidents of many things that happened on that farm while I lived there.

I don't usually share the stories, because who would believe them?

[KateKat]

oooo, I love these stories!

[dressagetraks]

2 episodes of spooky weirdness for me.

1. When I had Bam Bam, the half-Arab, half-lunatic gelding, I spent the summer that I was 17 trail riding almost every day. I'd take him out on the dirt road network around the boarding barn. Lots of directions and choices to make a lap. There was an old plank bridge that sounded neat - Bam never blinked an eye at it. He never spooked when you expected him to, and then he'd flip over nothing. But not far up from the old plank bridge was an old church with graveyard. I'll admit, I turned in a few times to ride around the cemetery. There was one specific spot of that cemetery that that horse would NOT approach. Giraffe neck, ears up, tail up. Other tombstones were okay. Other parts were okay. We were NOT going to get close to the group of graves in one corner. I even tried dismounting and leading him, tried treats, etc. Nope. I later discovered that NOT ONE person at the barn had ever been able to get a horse to approach that area of the cemetery. Even the perfect, BTDT trail horse. Nobody.

2. Years after my big black ASB died, the one I had to shoot myself on the property because the vet was 45 minutes away, I was walking out in the pasture and found one of his shoes. I know it was one of his because he wore hot forged shoes with a certain kind of clip that no other horse I have ever had has worn. Nobody prior to me has ever had horses on this property. Suddenly, there was this shoe, lying on top of the ground, nice and shiny, looked new. Absolutely did NOT look like it had been out in the weather and dirt even a week, much less years. :eek:

2 1/2 (on the farm but not horse related). One night, I was typing in the office and suddenly out of nowhere remembered my first Siamese, my Ultimate Cat. She always particularly loved the floor heat vents and would sit on top of them toasting her breast and chin. This memory hit me very strongly out of absolutely nowhere. About 20 seconds later, the thermostat clicked, and the furnace came on. Instantly, of the two cats in the room, HRH Rosalind, successor Siamese, snapped eyes open out of a nap, sat up, bristled, and stared at that office heat vent. Chiam the calico, who unlike Rosalind had actually known Sabra, immediately looked at the same heat vent and started purring sociably. I turned to look myself and could see nothing, but Rosalind looked like a cat in a horror movie, blazing eyes and absolutely fixated on that vent. I actually grabbed the camera and got a picture of her "something wicked this way comes" stare. A few minutes later, everybody suddenly settled down again. I posted the picture of Rosalind on a cat list asking for a poll of how many thought that cat actually saw something, and how many thought she (and I) were imagining things. The unanimous opinion was that she definitely saw something.

[analise]

The two things I mentioned were just two small incidents of many things that happened on that farm while I lived there.

I don't usually share the stories, because who would believe them?

I admit, I haven't had a "real" ghost experience.

That said, I'm fascinated by the stories and I've certainly got an open mind where they're concerned. I'd love to "hear" more if you were willing to tell more. :)

I'm also curious where in MD the farm was/is.

[fleur de duc]

I have had a few as well..

The strongest was the day I put my once in a lifetime mare down. She was my first horse, I got her when I was 9, and I had been around her a bit before that. I really don't have much memory of her not being around.

So the night we let her go I had let her 2 pasture mates (a 12h pony and a 17h tb) say goodbye to her after she had passed. My whole family was there, including my dad and 2 non horsey brothers. I wanted to stay with her until the truck came, but my family didn't want to watch that. My oldest brother left about 20 min before the truck arrived. My dad and youngest brother left once the truck arrived. i knew she was gone, but I still felt her there.

A few days after they both sat me down and told me they saw my mare standing at my side in the field as I sat next to her body. They both questioned my mom about why had I let my other gelding back out as they were leaving. My mom, who stayed with me and her body, assured them that no other horses were in that field. They both swear they saw another orange horse (my mare was a fiery orange chestnut) standing at my right shoulder (where my mare always stood as she was blind in her right eye and always wanted to see me, plus had amazing ground manners and never had her nose pasted my shoulder unless I asked for it).

I believe it 100%. I don't feel her there anymore, but I did for quite some time after the fact.

[TBMaggie]

:eek::eek::eek::eek:
It was a dark and stormy night..... l's all goosebumps just reading this thread.:eek::eek::eek:

[mkevent]

I'm guessing this is related, since it happened on our farm..

We bought our land and then had our house built. Quite a few years later, my husband and I were asleep in bed. It was very early in the morning and I was in that quasi-conscious state between being awake and asleep. I felt a presence and awoke to see what seemed like an older gentleman who stalked away to the corner of the bedroom before vanishing. I never saw his face but I got the distinct feeling that he was annoyed that I woke up and not my husband. It was the wierdest experience-but more magical than spooky.

I'm also convinced that a grackle that has taken up residence in my barn is my father-in-law and it always makes me smile.

[cooljenn77]

There is a pub in downtown Calgary called the Hose and Hound that used to belong to the firehall at the time when they used horses to draw the carriages. What is now the kitchen area was where the stables were and the firemen were housed in the next room so they were close to the horses. At that time, a ticker tape machine was used to type off the address of the fire. It was said when the horses heard the ticker tape they would all come out of their standing stalls and stand in the aisle, waiting to be geared up to the carriage. Well, apparently, the firehall suffered a fire and burnt down and they lost several of their good horses. They rebuilt the firehall, but the firemen always believed the firehouse to be haunted as they would hear clip-clopping of the hooves, and all the living horses would turn their heads to look, but nothing would be seen.

Today, it is a pub. The ticker tape is still there, but has been disconnected from electricity. What's creepy about that, is periodically the ticker tape will go off and the kitchen staff will hear the clip-clopping of the horse's hoofs down the alley way and then they stop about mid way. What's even creepier, is the ticker tape will have an actual address of a fire that is really burning in the city.

We ate in the pub, but did not see the ticker tape or hear the horses, but 2 of the waiters and 3 of the waitresses we questioned have indeed experienced it.

Next door to that is an old theatre and it is apparently haunted by several ghosts which many people have seen, not just the actors and actresses, but also those in the audience looking towards the stage will see pale people walking across stage or walking up and down the aisle. Apparently during rehearsals, quite often there is an "audience" of a few individuals sitting in the seats.

what street? i live in calgary now

[AnotherRound]

The barn I bought my first mare from, I was 12 then, was an old old hunt club, as in fox hunting, from the 1700's. At the time I was there, it was owned privately. It was constructed with the most beautifu, 14 x 14 stalls, with wrought iron bars, old old wood, and the aisles were brick. I say Aisles, because it was a rabbit warren of stalls and aisles - 6 stalls, then a right angle turn, then another 8 stalls, aisles going off of that. At the end of one aisle was double doors to a large garage, which was an old carriage shed. In there were straight stalls, with the curved wrought iron dividers between, and places for the carriages. Very elegant and old. There was a tack room with an apartment above it for the - lets see, what did they call him - the groom? I can't remember. Anyway only my mare and three ther horses lived there at the time, and one day I had put my mare away and the other two horses wer out in pasture, adjacent to the barn. I was cleaning up the aisle, and I heard hooves on the brick, around a corner where I couldn't see, a big bangning, like a horse breaking out of a stall, and though my mare as getting out. She was a pistol; it could happen! I stepped around the corner and she was in her stall just fine. Still heard the horse coming from another part of the barn, that sound of scrambling on the hard stones of the aisle, and i thought one of the other horses must have broken into the barn, and was going to run through the barn to get out the other end, and there was the sound of a horse galloping down an aisle, I am trying to find it, arms akimbo so as to ward it off, and I hear it round a corner and slide and scramble, as though going down, catch its self, and come on towards me, but no horse is there, in an instant it has burst past me, out the front door onto the paved area which was surrounded by split rail fencing and pastures on three sides, and one, two, three, the galloping strides rise up over the fence and gallop away into the field.

Swear to Dog this happend. I never saw a horse. Some horse broke out and ran by me. I figured it was an old energy from days past.

Uber creepy, but uber kewl.

[flea]

Last year or year before there was a similar thread with lots of ghost stories. I can't find it...anyone remember the thread or can find it?

[LarkspurCO]

An old barn I managed from 1982-83 was said to have been the site of a gruesome axe murder, where a man murdered a young couple necking on a summer night. I would often go out to the barn late at night alone and never saw or heard anything creepy -- very disappointing. I think the story was made up just to scare me.

My mother once woke my father after she saw the glowing green apparition of our basset hound, Kitty, floating above their bed. The funny thing was Kitty was still alive, sleeping on the living room floor. :lol:

When I was a teenager I was visited in my bedroom by a small, glowing sphere of light. It came in through the window and danced and hovered around above my bed, then swooped down below the edge of the bed where I couldn't see it. It flew back up and hovered above me again for few seconds, then flew down and disappeared below the foot of the bed again. I heard a loud thunk on my dresser and that was that. It wasn't a beam of light but more like a glowing ball or orb, about 1.5 inches in diameter.

The next day I banged things around on my dresser trying to recreate the noise I had heard. A heavy glass ashtray matched exactly. I concluded the orb was the ghost of my grandfather warning me to quit smoking. My grandfather had died in the house the previous summer -- he had lung cancer.

[TheHorseProblem]

A

My mother once woke my father after she saw the glowing green apparition of our basset hound, Kitty, floating above their bed. The funny thing was Kitty was still alive, sleeping on the living room floor. :lol:


My dogs have been known to emit certain greenish apparitions while they sleep on the floor.

I have no barn-related ghost stories, but my TB was certain the coiled hose next to the ring was haunted. When he didn't feel like working.

I love this thread. Goosebump City.

[Koniucha]

I'll play. I love ghost stories.

My old mare (28) and my young gelding (6) were best of friends since the day he arrived at my farm when he was 1. Sadly I had to have her put down last year. Every day for the first 2 weeks after she passed he would come out of his stall and go straight to hers just like he had been doing for years to wait for her to join him. Broke my heart and still does when I think about it.

When she had been gone for about 2-3 months I started seeing shadows out of the corner of my eyes and hearing her joints pop so I knew it was her LOL, and always the gelding would be somewhere in the vacinity. After a day or 2 I dreamed about her, and in the dream she was young and beautiful again. The very next morning the gelding came out of his stall and went straight to hers just like he used to. It was the last time he ever did that and I haven't seen her since.

I swear she had come to say goodbye to both of us.

That was so beautiful! I am crying.

[dizzywriter]

In college I worked on a guest ranch as a wrangler AKA - trail guide. Four of us lived in a cabin on the ranch that was from the old homesteading days. It had minor modern conviences, but it was very, very rustic- propane fridge, very, very limited hydroelectic that allowed us one very dim light at a time- running water- but from a stream and a hot water tank that gave about a 12 bathtub of luke warm water. Rustic for sure! Plus it was 7 miles off a dirt road, abutting 30,000 acres of national forest. So if someone was coming in a car- you would hear them about 3 miles away- see the lights about 1 mile away.

Anyway- one night I was there alone painting and I got that feeling I was being watched- hair on the back of my neck stood up and I got cold. But nothing more than that- just feeling watched.

When my roomies got home I asked them if they ever "felt" anything- 1 did - the other 2 didn't. Said we were crazy etc. just freaked out because we were in the middle of the woods.

A few nights later one of the nay sayers woke us up in the middle of the night- said someone was sitting on her chest and she saw two men in her room. FREAKY!

Then another night we had some of the staff over from the main lodge for a party. We had a rule that if you drank- you stayed because it was such a dark winding road home. So a few of the guys who worked in the kitchen were sleeping in the main room downstairs. When I got up at 5 AM to go round up the horses I found one of the guys from the kitchen (from Oakland, CA) sleeping under a big chest in the dinning room. I woke him up to find out why he was under there and he said in the middle of the night he woke up to 3 cowboy dudes standing over him. He said later he'd never been so scared in his life. He wouldn't come back out there after that night.

Then in the fall a group of hunters stayed there- and they had the same complaint- 3 men standing over them - or one of then trying to sit on their chest. Ghosts definitely liked to intimidate people who were "tough."

I finally got the story from the owners of the property- the house we stayed in was the gathering place for all the homesteaders in the area. One night there was a bar fight and three men died.

On that same property there was another homesteader who died--there was a small one room cabin in the middle of some out buildings (root cellar- wood shed etc.) Apparently in a bad winter storm he cut his leg with an axe and died of gangrine. His wife walked 26 miles into town with her baby and lived. Most of the homesteaders didn't make it through the winter, there was just so much snow- I can't even imagine!!! There was a feeling of saddness when you walked around those buildings, but I don't know if that was just because I knew the story, or because of the feeling run down old buildings.

Anyway- I guess the cowboy ghosts didn't feel threatened by me because I lived in that same cabin the next summer alone, and never had a scary experience. I would get that cold feeling every now and then, but I always felt very safe there.

This is a great story, but as I was reading it, I couldn't help but think: Brokeback Mountain. That's why they didn't bother you. :)

[AiryFairy]

My apartment is attached to the 250 year old barn where my horse spent the last year of his life. Nice to have him close but not so much when he was thumping and bumping on the floor, it was loud. Not long after he died, I woke up one night to hear very distinct hoofbeats on the barn floor - the barn floor is made from huge, wide oak planks, and there is a space underneath the boards so the sound is magnified - a horse walking on them makes a very distinctive and unique sound, which nothing else BUT a horse could make. He was the last horse to live in that barn, it was empty and swept out after he died.

I listened as he walked from what would have been his stall, up the aisle, and out the front door, which is where he was put to sleep. I was not dreaming, the noise woke me up, and I laid there listening with my heart pounding. I like to believe that it was my boy, coming to say goodbye. Haven't heard the noise since.

[gloriginger]

This is a great story, but as I was reading it, I couldn't help but think: Brokeback Mountain. That's why they didn't bother you. :)

Oh could be...puts a whole 'nuther spin on things for sure!!!

[mlranchtx]

Geeez, ya'll gave me such a case of the willies I had to wake up my dog to walk down the driveway with me to the storeage building. I told Rowdy to keep an eye out for Casper or his not-so-friendly pals.... The dog was not impressed. :no:

Oh and I made sure I took my gun too. Because a .40 is realllllly gonna stop a ghost. :eek: :lol:

[Miss Motivation]

Claremont Riding Academy, New York City

On a 'Horses in the City' trip several years ago, I was able to visit the old (sadly, now gone) Claremont Riding Academy. Wonderful funny place, horsekeeping like I'd never seen it. They were so kind to me, and with my camera and big lens, they thought I was a legit journalist, rather than ambitious hack.

After having a sweet teenage horsegirl show me around, I asked if I could see the top floor where the carriages had been stored. They let me wander, unguided, in the most wonderful place. I am not a particularly spiritual person, but I have no doubt there were ghosts, or at least potent memories, of horses, hostlers, and carriages from long, long ago on that floor.

The dust was inches thick in the corners and deep all over the scarred wooden floors. Beautiful wrought iron tie-stall dividers were stacked in piles, and a few ancient vehicles, including a large sleigh near the freight elevator, were trapped in time. One wall had wooden tack lockers, their contents, old saddles and bridles, spilling out onto the floor dappled by sunlight filtering through the glassless windows.

I closed my eyes and could hear the whistles of grooms whisping down their charges as they munched on sweet hay in iron mangers, the clatter and clomp of shod hoofs on cobblestones, and the sweet timeless smell of manure and liniment and sweat.

I stayed for an hour or more in that nearly empty loft, transported back a hundred years to a city run on horsepower. My feet didn't leave tracks in the dust, but my camera did capture the stall pieces, the saddles, and the sleigh, its runners silent forever.

[arabhorse2]

I admit, I haven't had a "real" ghost experience.

That said, I'm fascinated by the stories and I've certainly got an open mind where they're concerned. I'd love to "hear" more if you were willing to tell more. :)

I'm also curious where in MD the farm was/is.

Analise, the farm is in Bryantown, MD. Small, privately owned place.

I'll give you several more stories, since you're interested.

There were 3 of us in the house watching TV one evening, when we saw a glob of light ooze into the room from the floorboard. It went up the wall, then across to the right near the ceiling, then down and out a window.

When it was gone, we 3 women turned to each other and said, "You saw that too, right?" Yep, we all had.

I also used to see things in the darkened TV screen. It wasn't my reflection, or the reflection of things in the room. It always looked like a person standing there, or sometimes just someone's head. I learned to avoid looking at the TV when it was off.

Sometimes I'd see a man walking by the living room window. The first several times it happened, I'd go outside looking for whoever was hanging around. There never was anyone.

The owner's wife claimed to have seen a Civil War soldier sitting on a stump on the property. She said she saw him quite often.

There were battles fought in the area during the Civil War, and the Confederate POW hospital had been located down the road in Point Lookout. The lighthouse at Point Lookout is also said to be haunted.

[alteringwego]

i have ghost stories but unrelated to horses so I'll keep them to myself.

Definitely glad I'm reading this thread during the day though. Probably not one I'll revisit tonight.

[TikiSoo]

My story comes from a carousel museum....barn to wooden horses.

Our museum building was once the Ingraham Clock factory. People on tours were freaked out by the look of all the galloping horses in the main display room and often asked if the building was haunted. Well, I was a commuter and had a bedroom/shower set up in my office and would sleep there weeks at a time.
Late at night I would often (like nightly) hear footsteps in the stairwell and on the upper floor above me. I knew there was no animal or people in the building since there were alarms on everywhere but my room. Sometimes I'd hear voices talking, but just dim enough not to understand them.

I eventually came to the conclusion the floors would creak because they were flexing back into place from the weight of tour groups and the voices were from outside, just bouncing around the big brick building.

At least that's what I always told myself ;)

[arabhorse2]

The majority of the things I saw never made me fearful, although the images in the TV always gave me the feeling they weren't very nice.

The owner's wife said there was an evil presence on the property, but said that the benevolent ones tended to keep it at bay. She's what people would call a 'sensitive', which is why she saw and felt much more than I, her husband, or anyone else visiting did.

She also had one manifestation that liked to follow her around. I saw it as a ball of light, and it was always in her vicinity when I saw it. That one was apparently very friendly, because she said it gave her a sense of calm.

To this day, the things I saw and experienced don't alarm me. I found them fascinating, mostly. Sometimes creepy of course, especially if I was alone in the house.

[caradino]

I also used to see things in the darkened TV screen. It wasn't my reflection, or the reflection of things in the room. It always looked like a person standing there, or sometimes just someone's head. I learned to avoid looking at the TV when it was off.

:eek: this creeps the HECK out of me!! i am always scared i will see "something" in a dark TV screen or a mirror... and "White Noise" is one of my favorite scary movies.

but this one dark fall night... my friends and i were having a sleepover in the loft of the barn, and of COURSE we had to watch a scary movie. so we popped in "The Ring" which was of course made ten times scarier by the fact that we were four girls alone in a dark, dark barn on a backroad with nothing but woods and swamp behind us.

so you know the part where the fly comes out of the tv screen?

at that VERY MOMENT a bug flew in front of the tv we were watching.

my friends screamed. i laughed.

happy halloween! :p

[WendellsGirl]

All these stories of beloved pets coming back to see their 'person' are so touching!

[KPF]

Ok, I'm back to reading this thread now... I started reading it last night and had to stop, it was freaking me out since hubby was out of town and I was all alone at our dark, isolated farm! :eek: I confess, I skipped my normal night check last night!

These are some awesome stories. I once boarded at a farm that was one of the original French Huguenot settlements along the James River (it was actually one of the original land grants in VA from the Queen of England) and never saw any ghosts, but certainly had some creepy feelings once in a while, you know how the hair on the back of your neck stands up.

I did have one ghost encounter years ago when I was in college. Was visiting my (then) boyfriend, he rented the old detached kitchen (it had been made into an apt) of a revolutionary war era house/plantation on the river in the Northern Neck of VA. There had been a naval battle on the river in front of the house during the War of 1812, which left no American survivors. Many of the dead were buried in the cemetary on the grounds of the house, and there were cannonballs and stuff that had been recovered from the battle. It was quite spooky. Well, a few of us were sitting down along the riverbank one night, drinking and carrying on and all the sudden we ALL heard someone singing, sounded like an old hymn but we couldn't really make out the words. It was late at night and there were no other houses around, period. We were all :eek:, I swear it had to have been some sort of spirit.

[Bluey]

Right around 1900, a few years more or less, the neighbors built a large, square rock house, that had the whole lower part as a barn.
For a lightning rod, they strung a thick wire from one stake on the ground on one side, over the top of the house and down the other side.

Most Saturdays, in good weather, many came horseback and in buggies and wagons, it was before motor vehicles, they held barn dances there.

The story told to kids, to keep them in after dark, is that there were ghosts you could see running out of the brush, up that wire, over the house and back down the other side and running back into the brush.
Any kids the ghost caught outside, they would grab and carry off in the dark with them, under their arms, like a sack of potatoes.:eek:

The story goes that you could not get a little kid outside after dark and, as they got older, the braver ones would run out there, watch for a little bit, yell GHOST! and all would run back in a heap.

It was never established if there really were any ghost out there, but that is the story told.
That house is still standing today, wire and all.:yes:

[chai]

Love these spooky stories. Our farm is almost 200 years old. The house has many creaks and bumps in the night and most of the time I tell myself it's just the cats. I think there are ghosts here but there is no malevolence or anything really scary, just odd stuff that adds to the character of the house. Both Mr. chai and I have heard a young boy's voice saying 'Ma' in the night but we just accept that this comes with the house.

My whole family has felt something in one room of the house since we moved in. Our dining room is such a light-filled, welcoming room but there is just something about it. It has a window on the courtyard in the center of our house on one side and the other side is a wall of wavy pane windows and ancient French doors. Nobody likes to walk through this room at night and if I am up alone late at night, I won't. It seemed like a weird thing that all of us felt this way, but no-body could put their finger on why.
Two years after we moved in, I was raking leaves outside the diningroom and found a marker in the ground, almost obscured by dirt and lichen with the initials J.A.P. on it. There were people named Perley who lived here at one time, and Sidney Perley was a prolific regional author who wrote local histories and a fascinating book on bizarre New England weather events in the 1800s but I haven't been able to figure out who J.A.P. is.
Here is a picture of the marker:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/eastmeadowfarm/DSC_0013.jpg

[Cataluna]

When I was back in high school, I used to farm sit my BO's place when she and her family were away. It was the middle of winter, and all the horses were brought inside for the night. Since it was so cold that particular night, they generally ate a little more hay than usual, despite the inside of the barn being significantly warmer than the temperatures outside, so I went down around 11pm for a final hay check before going to bed.

There are 3 barns on the property, one of which is the original building built approx. 150 years ago. I checked this barn first. When I opened the door to go inside and turned on the lights, one of the cross-ties was violently swinging. It looked like someone had JUST walked by, and whacked it. Every horse was quiet in their stalls, there were no drafts, and it was impossible that the cats could have a) Been able to reach that high and b) Had the strength to move the heavy metal cross-ties with such force.

I was super freaked, and didn't dawdle checking on everyone. I got out of there super fast!

I later heard that the original farm owner had been mauled and killed by a bull in the old barn. This hasn't actually been "officially" confirmed, but I don't doubt it!

[Brigit]

I just love reading these stories!! So interesting!

The Hose and Hound is on the 9th Ave SE. :) Good food!

If you really like creepy stories, go to Heritage Park in Calgary. Many of the old houses there are still "lived in", it is claimed.

Definitely go see Heritage Park! I'm also from the Calgary area and I love going there. Lots of spooky stories!

Miss Motivation I would LOVE to see your pictures of the Claremont Riding Academy. I've heard about it but not seen many pictures! Pretty please with sugar on top???

I have a couple of stories too. My dad and I rented a farm when I was about 14, it had a neat old house on it and a barn. From what we know the original owner built the house & barn from wood that he harvested from the property and milled himself. To get into the main part of the barn you had to go through kind of a little hallway and then past the stairs leading to the loft. I dunno why but it always freaked me out so I'd run though there as quick as possible. One morning I went out to feed our horses before school, it was dark and when i went into the barn i could smell cigarette smoke. It smelled like it was coming from the loft. It really unnerved me because i thought maybe someone was hiding out in the loft so I went back to the house to get my dad who came to check it out. When we got back there was nothing there. It was odd.

Another time I was untacking my horse. We kept our tack in the basement of the house. To access the basement you had to go outside and down a little set of steps through a door. It was connected with the rest of the house. The basement was pretty creepy at the best of times so my imagination was already running a bit rampant. Anyways, I went to put my saddle away and had it over my arm. I leaned against the basement door to brace the saddle as I reached up to open the lock at the same time. Suddenly I heared this "BANG, BANG, BANG" like someone was pounding with their fist on the other side. I was TERRIFIED. After a couple of minutes I tried again and the same thing happened "BANG,BANG,BANG". I went and got my dad (who was over at the neighbors house) and the both came to investigate. One with a pitchfork and the other with the shotgun. They opened the door and there was nothing there anywhere. I was SURE something had banging on the door. After that I picked up my saddle and went to put it away in the basement, I again leaned on the door to push it open the rest of the way and heard a "bang" and felt something bump my leg............
That's when I realized that the stirrup on that side had fallen down and THAT was what caused the banging noise on the door!! LOL Boy did I feel silly!!!

[Brooks212]

Okay, mine's not horse related, but it has stayed with me for years and totally turned me into a believer as far this stuff goes.

My father-in-law was one of the kindest men I've ever met. When he was in his late 70s he had a stroke, and it soon became clear he would not recover to the degree where he could live independently. He lost his ability to speak, and developed medical complications because of the stroke.

Within a short period of time, we knew his time was very close. One night I had a vivid dream about him. He was sitting on what looked like an ordinary park bench. Behind him was a wooden fence with one rail. Behind that was a dense green forest - the greenest green I have ever seen. My FIL was smiling and happy and could barely contain himself sitting there. He was calling to me and waving me to him "Brooks, come on! Come with me, Brooks." He was wearing what looked like work boots, a white t-shirt, and white painter's pants. He looked young and strong (like SAIDAPAL'S mare).

I told him "Joe, I can't go with you." It was like I knew I couldn't. I recognized the fence as a barrier.

I woke up to the sound of the phone by the bed ringing. It was the nursing home. They were calling to tell my husband that his father had just pased.

The kicker? My husband's aunt brought a family photo album to the funeral. In it she had a picture of Joe (one that I had never seen) from the 1940s when he apparently worked in construction. He was wearing wook boots, white painter pants, and white t-shirt - with the sleeves rolled up over his biceps just like in my dream.


I've had a few other incidents like that, but they are not horse related either.

[Vindicated]

i have ghost stories but unrelated to horses so I'll keep them to myself.

Definitely glad I'm reading this thread during the day though. Probably not one I'll revisit tonight.


Oh come on, none of us will complain if they are'nt horse related

[gettingbettereveryday]

Not horse related, but rural in nature: My husband and I purchased a small farm that was built in the 1890s. The first thing my mother asked was "is it haunted." (Thanks Mom!) I didn't think it was at first, but I later changed my mind. Sometimes when I would be sitting in my office working, I would hear kids laughing. The neighbors had kids, but the windows were never open when it happened and several times I knew the kids were out of town so it couldn't have been them. I never felt threatened at all--more at peace--as I listened to the kids having fun. I loved that house.

[Beasmom]

I'm so earthbound, ghosts would have a heck of a time getting my attention. I've always wanted to see one, or feel a ghostly presence. Except for a couple of "hunches" that turned out to be true, I've never had a "psychic" or "paranormal" experience. So frustrating. So I'm thoroughly enjoying everyone else's stories.

The house at the family ranch, now uninhabited but still full of furniture, of all places, ought to be haunted. When I go to Las Animas to visit, I stay at the local motel, not at the ranch. Partly because the upstairs bedroom where I stay is cold, cold, cold in the winter, the bed is uncomfortable, and the light coming through the dusty windows makes me sad. It's a depressing place for me. Plus, the only bathroom is on the first floor, and the stairs are steep. It would be my luck to break my damn neck on those stairs and become the ghost that haunts the place...

My mother has happy memories of the ranch and of Las Animas. She spent summers there with her grandmother (in town) and aunt (at the ranch). When I visit, after I've gone around disposing of the dead mice and putting out fresh poison for the little dears, I spend time going through the rooms, looking for mementos that Mom would like to see. (She is too feeble to travel the 200 miles to the ranch now.) There is much that is eerie and sad about the old house, which I think was built in 1895. Not old compared to homes back east, and not even very old compared to some of the buildings in Las Animas and surrounding places, but still old. Peeling wallpaper, stained from the water that seeped in through cracking brick walls, decor that dates back to the '40's and beyond.

The basement is something right out of Silence of the Lambs. That's where the furnace and hot water heater are, and I have to go down there to check on those things. We also have several gallons of raw (delicious!) honey stored down there in a pantry cabinet that MUST have been original furniture from Peter and Mary Manifor's era. They were the original homesteaders and founders of the ranch. It was painted with a greyish-green paint, now cracked and peeling, and has some nails pounded into the sides -- no doubt for hanging hats and coats on. The only light comes from a window that at one time was the opening for the coal chute and a bare light bulb in the ceiling.

The outbuildings include a small horse barn with tack room, a chicken house, and what had been a blacksmith's forge. Back in the day, Peter and his son Henry built or repaired many of the items they used at that forge. The roosts are still in the chicken house along with a bin for chicken feed. The roosts were hinged so they could be lifted and cleaned under. The milk cow barn fell down a few years ago. Some of my early memories include gathering eggs with Aunt Nelle and watching either Henry sr. or Henry Jr. milk the cow.

Memories haunt me, but no ghosts.

[SmartAlex]

The barn I bought my first mare from, I was 12 then, was an old old hunt club, as in fox hunting, from the 1700's. At the time I was there, it was owned privately. It was constructed with the most beautifu, 14 x 14 stalls, with wrought iron bars, old old wood, and the aisles were brick. I say Aisles, because it was a rabbit warren of stalls and aisles - 6 stalls, then a right angle turn, then another 8 stalls, aisles going off of that. At the end of one aisle was double doors to a large garage, which was an old carriage shed. In there were straight stalls, with the curved wrought iron dividers between, and places for the carriages. Very elegant and old. There was a tack room with an apartment above it for the - lets see, what did they call him - the groom? I can't remember. Anyway only my mare and three ther horses lived there at the time, and one day I had put my mare away and the other two horses wer out in pasture, adjacent to the barn. I was cleaning up the aisle, and I heard hooves on the brick, around a corner where I couldn't see, a big bangning, like a horse breaking out of a stall, and though my mare as getting out. She was a pistol; it could happen! I stepped around the corner and she was in her stall just fine. Still heard the horse coming from another part of the barn, that sound of scrambling on the hard stones of the aisle, and i thought one of the other horses must have broken into the barn, and was going to run through the barn to get out the other end, and there was the sound of a horse galloping down an aisle, I am trying to find it, arms akimbo so as to ward it off, and I hear it round a corner and slide and scramble, as though going down, catch its self, and come on towards me, but no horse is there, in an instant it has burst past me, out the front door onto the paved area which was surrounded by split rail fencing and pastures on three sides, and one, two, three, the galloping strides rise up over the fence and gallop away into the field.

Swear to Dog this happend. I never saw a horse. Some horse broke out and ran by me. I figured it was an old energy from days past.

Uber creepy, but uber kewl.


This is my favorite one, and I've read it here before. Wasn't it 2007 we had a good Halloween thread going? I remember a story about a trail ride where the abandoned haunted house fell in. I guess I'll have to try to find the topic.

[AnotherRound]

Thanks, I remember that thread, but not a trail ride story about an abandoned house. I want to see that one. Maybe the mods can find it and combine them, or something. What a great collection, it would make a fun anthology. I've really enjoyed these.

[SmartAlex]

Thanks, I remember that thread, but not a trail ride story about an abandoned house. I want to see that one. Maybe the mods can find it and combine them, or something. What a great collection, it would make a fun anthology. I've really enjoyed these.

I looked for it last year too and couldn't find it. I thought it was on the same thread where you originally posted your story. Maybe it was an off topic day. There was a good ghost thread that started in 2004 which comes up pretty easy in the searches.

[AnotherRound]

Here's an old one from 2004, haven't reread it yet:

http://chronicleforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=25308&highlight=ghosts

It might be the one we were thinking of. Who would have thought it was that long ago!! (2004).

edtied: Well, I didin't find my story in it. I do think there was one in 2006 or 2007 we are missing. Hope it didn't get deleted!

[hollyhorse2000]

A few years ago, my cousin died in Ireland. Afterward, her daughter and I sat in my cousin's kitchen, drinking Bailey's and talking. We hoped maybe my cousin would "send us a sign" when she "got to the other side." I mentioned that I'd always heard that having a wild bird fly into a house was a sign from "the other side." My cousin's daughter agreed that she'd heard that too. Three days later, around midnight, the daughter went to her room (in her mother's house) to go to bed and there was a little brown wren flying around in it. We have no idea how it would have gotten in. It was the first time in either of our lives that such a thing had happened. We took it as a sign that my cousin was pleased with the funeral and all the outpouring from her adopted country . . . .

[cowgirljenn]

I had a good friend and "horse mentor" who we lost to cancer a few years ago. Out of the five horses I own, four were hers. :) She was such a dear friend, and I miss her badly.

When she was in hospice, already "out of it" but not yet physically gone, I am convinced she visited us. My husband walked across our living room and a photo of me on the first horse she gave me flew off of my desk. It didn't tumble like it was shaken lose by him walking - it flew several feet across the room. I told DH that was Susan on her way out. It freaked him out. I've -always- been scared of ghosts and spirits, but Susan didn't scare me at all.

Before that, I was in Arizona with Susan (above friend) when her husband died. She and I were visiting someone Jim had worked with. He was harassing Susan about some family issues, and she was getting upset. All of the sudden, we hear a loud KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK on the door. He got up to see who was there, and no one was there. No one was anywhere around. Susan just said, "Ok, Jim, I get it.." The guy we were visiting got scared and we left shortly after that.

My grandmother knew things that were going to happen before they happened, even after she had Alzheimers and often didn't make sense. I believe in lots of things you can't see, feel, or easily explain.

[Ponypoor]

True story, my aunt helped her girlfriend take care of her horse at a self-care boarding barn years ago. Before her friend started boarding her horse there a worker or other boarder hung themself in the hay loft. Nobody told my aunt about this tragedy. One day she was going to drop some hay and when she reached the top of the ladder she saw the body swinging from the rafter. She jerked up, stumbled, hit her head on another rafter, knocked herself out cold. She woke up to no body and got herself out of there very quickly. She ended up having to have stitches. She called her friend who then told her the story and that other people had witnessed the event also. She needless to say never went back.

[Ponypoor]

I agree with Rodawn about the helpful voices that tell you to stay home and not ride because today is the day you are going to get thrown. I chose not to listen and hit dirt that morning. I also was told by voice that I had to get to the barn one morning. It was my turn to feed and I was still in bed when the voice woke me. Threw on my clothes, raced to the barn, and found that a very nice stallion was gasy and possible colic. Called owner and he resolved per care instructions. I also thank the voice that said my girlfriend's horse was not having bouts of colic but was suffering from eating moldy food. I did not appreciate the fact that I had a phone ringing in my ear for three days during this episode giving me heads up that bad news was coming by phone. She was living in another state and was unable to break away to give me the informatiion. I'm thinking of renting myself out to TV for extra money.

[BohemianRN]

Not Horse Related, but still spooky!
On the allnurses forum: http://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/whats-your-best-108202.html

Some of these really spooked me! Most of us nurses (esp ICU) have spooky stories

[BohemianRN]

California Ghost Story. Sorry not horsey, but one of the best I have heard. Lit fans will recognizse the name Richard Brautigan. This story was recounted in an biography written by his best friend, Keith Abbott. Richard was one of the beat writers and lived in Bolinas, CA (North Bay, lovely little isolated town). He was a cynic at best. Anyway, he bought this lovely old house in Bolinas and Keith was over helping him move some stuff. As Keith came up the stairs he saw a little girl in a frilly dress and asked Richard, "Who's the little girl?". Richard went pale. "You saw here too??". Apparently another of his friends, who had never met Keith, had seen her too!. Richard looked through town records and found out that a little girl who had died at the turn of the century was buried in the back yard. I love this story, because who would be less likely to see a ghost than 2 old curmudgeon cynics!

Also, the bio is Downstream from Trout Fishing in America by Keith Abbot for all you Beat fans

[tkhawk]

When I was a kid in India, my paternal grandmother who lived in the village got sick and came to live with us. She was very sick (heart related along with a few other things). She was in quite a bit of pain and we had to do surgery. The doctors said the chance of survival was close to nil, but otherwise she would just be in pain and die anyways. So we all thought she wouldn't make it. But she had a dream in the hospital, a nurse came to her and showed her four cards and said you have four more and she actually lived for four years exactly after that!

Her mother-my greatgrandmother- was ok, but in somewhat failing health. One day she called everyone and said it was her time to die and said goodbye to evereyone and that she could see the spirits come to take her and that they had bought a chariot with horses to take her over. (Apparantely my great grandfather worked for the British when they ruled India and had horses -but they fell on hard times and had to sell all of them. No one in our family had them afterwards-well except me:lol:).

Apparantely my dad when he was a kid could tell when a cow would calve. Most people only had a few cows and they had halters and were tied in the shed. Apparantely he just knew when they would calve. How he knew-who knows-he was justa kid. But those kind of things were very common back then in India-almost considered normal. Like my dad wen't on to be an engineer too. You just kept those two realms separate.

[mkevent]

That "little voice" told me to buy lottery tickets on 2 seperate occasions-once it told me specifically how many tickets and the other time it told me where to buy them. Each time I won $50(which doesn't buy much horse related items at all!!). Another time it told me which slot machine to put my three quarters in and then I won $50.(wish I could win more than $50 each time-need to convince my little voice to think bigger!). That did teach me to listen to the little voice.

I wish I had horse related stories but I do find it interesting how certain places can give you funny vibes and you don't know why...

I remember doing a house tour a few years ago. One of the local hospitals has a homeowner donate their house for charity tours. The house is decorated by interior designers, etc and the proceeds benefit the hospital.
One home was historic and even was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The parlor of this particular house was disturbing to me-like I couldn't get through it fast enough. I thought it was because it was decorated rather garishly in my opinion-lots of blood red walls,etc.-it just was really creepy to me. I found out later that someone had been murdered in that room. I always wondered if the decorator unconsciously chose that color scheme.

[alittlegray]

Not horse related, but true!

My grandma had a ghost named Clarence that followed her to every house she ever lived in. I guess you might think that the things that happened were just annoying lapses of memory unless you could hear her tell all the stories of clarence. Mostly he liked to move things and turn on lights/tv, open doors and close them. She even took to making tape outlines of things on the counters just to see if she was imagining that they were moved. It wasn't her imagination. For years and years, everywhere she lived that ghost was there.

Back many a year ago, my mom and dad lived in Vallejo, CA when they were just newlyweds. Grandma was living in Kansas. Mom and dad lived over a mechanic shop that dad was working at, and the stairs to the apartment were built onto the outside of the building out of wood and metal. They were very noisy and there was no way you could get up to mom and dad's door without them hearing you first and opening the door before you even reached the top of the stairs. One evening they heard someone coming up the steps and so my mom went and opened the door. There was no one there. They were slightly puzzled, and made a joke about Clarence. Mom picked up the phone and called Grandma, and said something about Grandma keeping that darn ghost closer to home. Grandma shrieked and screamed loud enough that dad could hear her through the phone also. Apparently Clarence had been following grandma from room to room making noise and knocking things off the counters. The breaking point was when he knocked some unfired ceramics off a shelf in grandma's craft room. She apparently said "Clarence, why don't you go spend some time in California with the kids? I need a vacation from you!" Not 30 minutes later here is my mom calling her and asking her to keep her ghost at home!! Weird, eh?

Also, in the old house my grandfather lived in that was built in the early 1900's, there were definitely things not of this world. The attic in the house was reached by a set of steep stairs off the kitchen. At the bottom of the stairs was a door of the type that slides into a recess in the wall..not accordian style but a full wood door. The stairs made two 90 degree turns, and then the attic ran the full length of the house and was tall enough in the middle that an adult could stand. The eaves were pitched down and there were windows at both ends. There were lots of neat things stored up there and all of us grandkids would play up there during the day. But you couldn't pay me enough to get me up there at night, period. Quite often at night grandpa's black lab would get up from the other room and come stand at the bottom of those stairs and growl at the door. All hair raised and teeth bared. It was really frightening to watch. If someone opened the door to check things out, the dog would whimper and slink into the other room. That is probably one of the most vivid memories from my childhood, watching Sam sit there and growl at that door.

[jumpjesterjump]

i have a couple, 1) i was house sitting for a vet here in NC their two dogs went up to the third floor landing and barked at something i could not see, but all of the hair on the back of my neck stood on end and i had chills and a sick feeling when i was trying to get them to come down. I refused to go past the second floor and i would leave multiple lights on in the house when i stayed there.

2) at one of the farms i worked at there were foot steps in the loft, there would not be anyone around and you could here them plain as day. The other working student and myself made a story up that it was a working student that had gotten lost while hacking on the Wathour-Moss foundation, and came back to haunt the farm. I also had some weird feelings when i would go hacking by myself (like someone/ something was following me) my uptight english TB i think had the same feelings he would spook at imaginary things.

3) when i was living and working on a farm in NY there were some really strange feelings around the barn, you would hear things at night in the barn when there were no horses inside. the house also gave me a strange feeling, i would not stay in the house after dark by myself. it was like you expected someone to be around the corner, and there would be no one there.

[Robin@DHH]

Our farm, Dancing Horse Hill, as the name implies is on a hill. The
pastures slope down one hillside to a valley where streams flow after
sudden storms and then the pasture rises up the other side of the
valley to another hilltop where our neighbors live. The gravel road
now runs beside the pasture and turns at the far hillrise to run in
front of the neighbors place.

One early summer day the herd of horses came in from the pasture
to hang out in the run-in shed and get a drink. All but the big
thoroughbred gelding Spec. He stayed out in the pasture standing
at the top of the hill. All of a sudden he started neighing frantically
and staring at the place where the valley enters the pasture from
the road. Spec was very agitated, running toward the herd and
then back to stare at the spot. The herd leader came and looked
but couldn't see what was bothering Spec and went back to the
shed. My husband went out to see why Spec seemed to be yelling
"Look!, Look!" and DH couldn't see anything there as well. Finally,
Spec quieted and came up to join the herd.

A few weeks later I was talking to our next door neighbor, a 80
something farmer who was born on the farm next door and lived
there his whole life. He mentioned he doesn't care to ride horses.
He said it brought back bad memories of a time when he was
ten years old and out riding with another little boy. A car came
along our road and scared the other boys pony which spooked
into the car causing both child and pony to be killed by the car.
It happened right at the place where the valley enters our pasture,
at one time the road ran down beside the streamcourse. And it
happened just after crops were all planted that year, which would
have been at beginning of summer back then.

Had the boy and his pony come back, was that what Spec saw?
We don't know, but Spec is now 29 and hasn't been visited by
any more ghosts than thoroughbreds usually experience since then.

[spurgirl]

My daughter has some type of precognition (?) in her sleep, I guess. Her 4H leader, a wonderful man who had a club for 54 years (!), had been doing poorly. We knew he was failing, but he had become healthy enough to leave the hospital and go back to his assisted living apt. We visited him, and then about 10 days later, my daughter had a dream. Her leader had come to her, saying "I know you will always follow your dreams, and become a wonderful artist. I will think of you always." The next day, when she was at school, I learned he had gone into a coma that night. When she got home, she asked if there was any news about him. She knew from the night before that he was passing. He died a few days later.

She also knew her Great Grandma had passed, a few years previously...Had a dream one night of Grandma Jean happy and dancing, excited that she could go see Tom (GGrandpa who had passed 4 years previously)-she knew about her before the phone rang that morning, telling us she had passed during the night!!

Not really horse related I know, but some others had been snuck in...;)

[dani0303]

:eek:Just have to add that this is especially creepy to read as I'm sitting in a dark tackroom and listening to pony noises outside

[Beasmom]

Alittlegray, that door you described that slid into the wall is a pocket door. We have one intact pocket door at the ranch, and evidently there used to be another one that went from the parlor to the dining room. When the old house was remodeled in the '40's, that glass-paned pocket door was removed and the doorway converted to an arch.

Remembering the pocket door reminded me of an incident that I cannot explain shortly before Cousin Henry's death. When he moved to the nursing home in Denver, we took a few articles of furniture, including his big lounge chair, a dresser, lamps, that sort of thing. When the movers took the lounge chair out, there was a mess of cookie crumbs, wrappers, pens, pencils & stuff left under the chair. I determined to clean it up the next time I came to the ranch -- we had to leave when the movers left.

The next time I visited the house, the parlor floor was spotless. I asked the man who was renting the farm if he or his wife had come in and swept. I wanted to thank them for the kindness. He said neither he nor his wife had done anything inside the house.
I still don't know where all the stuff on the floor went. I could see mice picking up the crumbs, but not the pens and pencils.

A ghost with a neat streak?

[Thomas_1]

A dead king, the whole of the Scottish nobility, 16,000 scotsmen slaughtered and fallen on the land. Buriel mounds, spectres, orbs and you name it I've got it according to the Internet.

You absolutely can't live somewhere like this without having an enormous sense of place and history. It was the battle of Flodden that led to the Unification of England and Scotland..... or in other words to the United Kingdom. So its got huge historical and political significance.

The last great battle between the English and Scots took place at Flodden Field on 9th September 1513 and the army of King James IV (the last King to die in battle) set camp on land occupied by us. Legacy of the border conflicts and the Reivers are the many castles that surround us. And all the subject of ferocious battles and massive slaughter.

So King James IV of Scotland died here on land occupied by my farm, as did an estimated minimum 16,000 other men. There's mass burial pits on the land.
http://www.flodden.net/index.php

I also have a bronze age multi ditch henge site and bronze age burial mound on the land:
http://sine.ncl.ac.uk/view_image.asp?digital_doc_id=765
http://sine.ncl.ac.uk/view_image.asp?digital_doc_id=767
http://sine.ncl.ac.uk/view_image.asp?digital_doc_id=768

It's supposed to be one of the most haunted places in the world and take a look at these: I casually googled Flodden Battlefield and ghosts and look what turned up:

http://www.paullee.com/ghosts/sns.html

two famous historical battles- Edge Hill, fought in 1642 and Flodden field in 1513. Both are famous for their visual and audio 'playbacks' : indeed, in the years after Edge Hill, King Charles was so concerned about the tales of fighting at Edge Hill that he sent along a team of investigators, who duly noted the phantom fighting (if anyone can provide documented evidence for this sighthing, please let me know asI am sceptical of such anniversary ghosts). Edge Hill it seems no longer visualises (the last recorded case was in the mid-19th century), but Flodden is quite active. Sounds of a battle have often been heard and drivers using the A697 have reported soldiers crossing their path. "The difference", as Chris writes, "is that a power line runs very close to the battle field at Flodden, and this may have prolonged the haunting". Chris also points out the effect on a haunting caused by the renovation, rebuilding or remodelling of a building and that this can cause sporadic, spontaneous outbursts. Why this latter effect occurs is, like most of parapsychology, unknown.

And strange spectres and orbs

http://ghostsofthenortheast.150m.com/floddenfield.html

And a score of pages of google and stories of ghosts.

Every time I come in and say "guess what I found in a bale/the field", Susan responds with "Please say, King James' secret cache of gold and treasure and not an old musket or cannon ball or a horse shoe"

So I discovered that where I live is supposed to be one of the most haunted placed in Great Britain - according to the internet it's "spooky, eerie and full of ghosts"

Truth be told Flodden is very rural and with no passers by to speak of and no traffic. It's blissfully quiet and peaceful.

Not sure if its a case of why let the truth get in the way of a good story or if I must tell Sue to stop wondering round the farm when its dark in her nightdress

[ZiggyStardust]

Thank you for this thread, it is so perfect! I am sitting at home alone and the wind is howling around the windows and the stove vent :eek:

Don't have any major haunted barn stories (un?)fortunately, but I will always remember a short trail ride I took with a friend when we were kids many moons ago, just off the edge of the property at a farm where we boarded our horses. We came to a place where the woods thinned a little, which is very unusual in our area, most places have thick undergrowth that forces you to stay on the trail. There was evidence of humans from many years ago, rusted equipment, etc. It was dead, dead quiet, and still. I began getting a very distinct "this is not good, not a good place to be at all" feeling. I tried to ignore it and thought my friend would just think I was silly, but when it persisted, I turned to her and said, "This place is really creepy, I kind of want to get out of here," she immediately said, "I know, me too," and we hightailed it out of there. I never went back to that spot.

I rode down many other trails in the area and have ridden past plenty of old rusted out remains and such, but have never had that urgent feeling anywhere else. It's always made me wonder if something bad happened there.

[allpurpose]

I'm so earthbound, ghosts would have a heck of a time getting my attention. I've always wanted to see one, or feel a ghostly presence. Except for a couple of "hunches" that turned out to be true, I've never had a "psychic" or "paranormal" experience. So frustrating. So I'm thoroughly enjoying everyone else's stories.

Hi Cousin:

Our Claffy side has the ghost-awareness trait. Listen and you shall hear them!

I have friendly ghost stories from experiences in barns, fields and houses, but my weirdest experiences are my premonitions. My daughter left early one Saturday to foxhunt and went to the barn to meet her trainer and get the horses ready. About 15 minutes after she left the house, I woke up, sat bolt upright, and had an overpowering feeling that I needed to go to the barn to see her off. I dressed and went to the barn in dread, imagining the worst. Luckily all was well. Trainer and DD were busily preparing and loading their horses. I mentioned in passing that I had had a premonition, and went off to clean stalls. Off they went. I was going to join them later for breakfast after the hunt.

Not more than an hour after they left, I got a call that DD had gone off in the middle of the woods and had been stepped on and badly hurt. The mud stud had punctured her thigh, and there was a possibility she had broken her leg. She had ridden back out of the woods and back to the clubhouse under her own steam - YIKES - could I come get her and bring someone to drive the trailer home too?

To make a long story short - leg was not broken, stud hole in her thigh eventually healed up, and to this day, my daughter freaks out when I say I'm having funny feelings about something. She knows she needs to listen!

[ZiggyStardust]

That was so beautiful! I am crying.

I did too :sadsmile:

[Beasmom]

Hey, Cuz, spill the beans with the friendly ghost stories!

Come out to Colorado some time and I'll show you around the ranch, Las Animas and Boggsville. Maybe you'll pick up on the stuff that will not manifest to me!

I've been racking my brain to recall those "hunches" I had. They were vivid at the time, and proved to be true.

[Roxy SM]

Claremont Riding Academy, New York City

On a 'Horses in the City' trip several years ago, I was able to visit the old (sadly, now gone) Claremont Riding Academy. Wonderful funny place, horsekeeping like I'd never seen it. They were so kind to me, and with my camera and big lens, they thought I was a legit journalist, rather than ambitious hack.

After having a sweet teenage horsegirl show me around, I asked if I could see the top floor where the carriages had been stored. They let me wander, unguided, in the most wonderful place. I am not a particularly spiritual person, but I have no doubt there were ghosts, or at least potent memories, of horses, hostlers, and carriages from long, long ago on that floor.

The dust was inches thick in the corners and deep all over the scarred wooden floors. Beautiful wrought iron tie-stall dividers were stacked in piles, and a few ancient vehicles, including a large sleigh near the freight elevator, were trapped in time. One wall had wooden tack lockers, their contents, old saddles and bridles, spilling out onto the floor dappled by sunlight filtering through the glassless windows.

I closed my eyes and could hear the whistles of grooms whisping down their charges as they munched on sweet hay in iron mangers, the clatter and clomp of shod hoofs on cobblestones, and the sweet timeless smell of manure and liniment and sweat.

I stayed for an hour or more in that nearly empty loft, transported back a hundred years to a city run on horsepower. My feet didn't leave tracks in the dust, but my camera did capture the stall pieces, the saddles, and the sleigh, its runners silent forever.

Do you have any of these photos up online. I would LOVE to see them! I knew they ghad old carriages up there but didn't know there were old saddles and bridles too. I wonder why they were left up there and I wonder what happened to all that stuff when they closed the place!

[arena run]

Thank you for this thread, it is so perfect! I am sitting at home alone and the wind is howling around the windows and the stove vent :eek:

Don't have any major haunted barn stories (un?)fortunately, but I will always remember a short trail ride I took with a friend when we were kids many moons ago, just off the edge of the property at a farm where we boarded our horses. We came to a place where the woods thinned a little, which is very unusual in our area, most places have thick undergrowth that forces you to stay on the trail. There was evidence of humans from many years ago, rusted equipment, etc. It was dead, dead quiet, and still. I began getting a very distinct "this is not good, not a good place to be at all" feeling. I tried to ignore it and thought my friend would just think I was silly, but when it persisted, I turned to her and said, "This place is really creepy, I kind of want to get out of here," she immediately said, "I know, me too," and we hightailed it out of there. I never went back to that spot.

I rode down many other trails in the area and have ridden past plenty of old rusted out remains and such, but have never had that urgent feeling anywhere else. It's always made me wonder if something bad happened there.


In a case like that I feel the we 'see' things that we don't realize we're seeing. Maybe you'd seen a foot print that didn't 'fit', or a movement that you didn't process fully, or some 'something' that told you DO NOT GO THERE.

I had the same experience one night. My daughter and I were riding in a full moon and were coming down the trail out of a cutover-type are into a pine-tree wooded area. The trees were heavy over the trail and blocked out a good bit of the light. We have gone down that trail many times and it is a particularly enjoyable part of our ride. We'd even gone down it many time in the moonlight.

That time, however, I had a distinct feeling of "don't go in there'. Ewww *shudder* So. We didn't. I told Mamie we were gonna turn around and trot away, back toward the house. I had the MAJOR creepies all up my back.

I feel that there was something up in there that my subconcious mind had seen, but my concious mind had not registered.

To make bad things even worse, I had said before (to make us both feel better about being out in the darkness) that we were 'good' as long as the dogs and horses didn't say there was anything to worry about.

So... on out way 'trotting' back toward the house the dogs started barking and growling at a shoot house. We HAD to go by that house.

May I add that we left that stupid trotting crap behind and picked up a decent canter!!! lol sylvia

[HelloAgain]

When I went to William & Mary I was active in the Theatre Dept (as well, as the Equestrian Team does that make this HR?) and the building was considered rather haunted. For example, there are two seats in the balcony which they do not sell because so many people have reported a feeling of being pushed off the chair. There are also rooms people are not allowed to enter alone, because of many incidences of freak injuries and doors inexplicably locking. It was also considered to have a benevolent spirit, named "Althea" after the founder of the William & Mary Theater.

We were preparing for a show and kept hearing this rattling like a loose fan in the ventilation above the stage. We sent the maintenance guys up there THREE times and they found nothing amiss. After wondering how we were ever going to do a show with this constant, loud, metallic rattling, one of the stage managers jokingly/despairingly said "Oh, Althea, please make it stop." It immediately stopped and we never heard it again.

Fourh_mom totally agree the brain senses more than it knows. For a great book about unconscious processing, "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. Very interesting.

[Timex]

Chai, that marker looks a lot like a child's grave marker. Which would explain why there's no info on a JAP???? Not to give you the creeps any more than you already have... But its a thought.

I would LOVE to see the claremont photos too!

As for a story (non ho, sorry) of my own, my 5 year old son has, for as long as he could speak, talk about the men that he sees. Describing them, he describes my grandfather (dead 10 yrs) and my dad (who died when the baby was 9 months old). And I have never had photos out or around, so how??? Its comforting, though. And I routinely see, out of the corner of my eye, my golden cross, my very first dog, who died 17 years ago.

[Thomas_1]

Well Halloween came and went at Flodden Battlefield and despite laying claim to being one of the most haunted places and having a load of buriel pits, not a thing!

Darn it!!!

[sid]

My farm was Jackson's encampment area during the 2nd battle of Manassas at Bull Run (I'm located at the Park's edge).

Since I built my big barn/arena in 1993, I've gone through a consistent problem with radios and microwaves in the barn.

The radio will turn itself up to full volume all by itself. It may last for weeks or months. Then it's fine. I've gone through 2 radios with the same problem. It's a pain when it happens as I have to go running back to the barn to keep turning it down.

Same with the microwave(s). Once in awhile it will turn itself on, mostly late in the day. What is really weird is that whenever it does this the LED readout spells H.E.L.P. Talk about creepy. Poor kid who was working for me was cleaning tack in the tack room when it happened one day and she completely freaked out.

I've just gotten used to it..:lol:

[Seven-up]

I don't have any good stories, just that a ghost lives in my trailer tackroom and constantly leaves the door open.


I do like to freak people out with this one, though. In my feed room, the previous owner wrote her name on the wall in the dust, in HUGE letters. Being as relaxed as we are about cleaning around here, her name has been there for almost 15 years. So when people come in, of course they ask why our tack room wall says "CONNIE". I like to tell them that we wipe it off every day but it always comes back.:winkgrin:

[luckyducky]

This is a true story, made scarier by the fact that I used to ride our horses through the woods in this area many, many times. I had such pleasant memories of this wooded patch of deserted road...my horse and I just wandering through the trees, not a care in the world,... in the daylight.

The Lonely Road


Many years ago, I used to take a short cut to the job I worked at in town. This short cut involved several miles of gravel roads with no houses for miles. I traveled this road many times without incident,both on horseback, and by car, even to the point of getting a flat tire on the most deserted portion of this road, and having to walk the 3 miles back home.
Strangely, one fall, I started to discover this eerie feeling whenever I found the need to take this " short cut" at night. Like something was there, watching me, waiting for me to have to stop and pull over in the darkest, most deserted portion of that road.
The road is just like any other gravel road, but, at one point it meanders through this swampy area, and it is there the road is also at its lowest point, so it is often covered by wisps of fog.
The swampy area is where I found myself feeling the worst, I just felt something evil and sinister lurked there, I don't know what it was, never saw or heard anything to make me feel this way, I just felt I was in danger there at night. I continued to travel this path, partly, because of my stubborness, I refused to let fear get the best of me, I have always felt that facing my fear allows me to rise above it. And the other reason, I continued to drive this road, was because it WAS a short cut to my place of employment, and since I am usually running late, it seemed like an acceptable alternative to being late for work.
This feeling persisted, all fall that year (1988), and it got so bad that as soon as I was on the road, the hair on the back of my neck would start to rise. I was terrified driving that road!!! Finally, I gave in, I stopped driving the "short cut" for any reason at night.
The daylight hours were safe, and I continued to travel this road only in the daylight.
For an entire year I avoided that road at night at all costs.

A year or so later, we were traveling as a family and decided to tell ghost stories, and as we were entertaining each other, I decided to tell my story about the road, knowing my brothers and sisters all traveled the same road.
As I was telling my story, I could see my younger sister, getting more and more pale and silent, I thought I might be unnecessarily scaring her ( used to scare her all the time by riding my horse up to her bedroom window, and with my horse's head peeking in I would whisper her name, I am kinda twisted that way...), and sought to reassure her that the feeling I had was gone, what ever had been down there in that swampy area was gone. She just looked at me with terrified eyes, and said, " The EXACT same thing was happening to me, I stopped driving that road because I was so scared". Both of us looked at each other and my family got silent, this was the most frightening part for me, because I thought I had been enduring this fear alone, and to discover that my little sister had been experiencing the same phenomenon, made it all the more frightening and real!!!
To this day, I travel that road with trepidation, especially at night, I know what ever was out there causing me such fear is gone, but, who's to say it won't come back?