
East Tennessee Riding Club (ETRC) is privately owned and operated by its members and has been in existence since 1949. It consists of a barn, a clubhouse building, an arena, concessions stand, and 8 paddocks and sits on 14 acres of land near the shopping center of the town. Many people are surprised to find a barn within the city limits and are surprised at the number of horses that are stabled at the barn. No stallions or foals are kept at the barn. Stabled at the barn are several TN Walking horses, a Thoroughbred, a Missouri Foxtrotter, Arabians, Paints, Palominoes, a Mustang and several Quarter horses. The horses range from pleasure horses, to barrel horses and jumpers.
The activities of the club are under the leadership of a board of directors elected yearly by the membership. Two of the directors are elected on alternate years from the other two.
The board meets the third Thursday of each month to conduct the business of ETRC. Committees that help with the running of ETRC are chaired by the members and the chairs report to the board at the monthly meetings.
Members spend a good deal of time at the barn feeding and caring for their horses and maintaining the stalls. You will find that many members come at the same time each day and spend time talking with other members about horses, the barn, the weather and the latest news. In addition to coming to the barn daily to care for their own horses, members participate in a once a month organized workday. On the workdays, projects such as putting in bleachers for shows, heavy duty cleaning and repairing of the clubhouse building, mowing the grass, repairing of roofs of both barn and clubhouse, and working on the arena, etc are done.