To read Nanci’s story, and understand her inspiring journey that lead to Peaceful Acres Horses becoming what it is today, you can purchase her (2024) book “In Search of Purpose: One Woman’s Journey to Save and Restore Horses Who Bring Hope to People.”

You’ll be led through steps and guided note-taking to begin discovering your own passion and purpose along the way. It’s sure to help ignite a personal pursuit of positive change and healthier, more meaningful habits in your own life.

In many ways, the horses’ stories are Nanci’s story. Much of her life has been lived with the focus and purpose of organizing people to help horses, and partnering specially chosen program horses with people to create positively impactful experiences. The lines are blurred between who Nanci is and who Peaceful Acres Horses is. I imagine there are not many moments in her days that aren’t related to PAH and sustaining the mission. Nanci lives her purpose daily and invites others to learn to find a fulfilling purpose that drives them too.

Purchase Nanci’s Book on Amazon

Nanci is a loving and incredibly encouraging mother to her three adult children, and is “Nani” to three beautiful and joyful granddaughters. The rare moments that she isn’t thinking about or working for PAH, she can be found with her family. She is a prime example of a woman with a Red personality, and is as resilient as can be. Nanci is very driven to learn and improve daily, which naturally led to her becoming a Maxwell Leadership certified coach and speaker. She’s compassionate, diligent and direct, and all these traits are what has led to saving so many lives and healing countless people and horses.

When Nanci isn’t in the Stable caring for the rescues, or her office, she’s working alongside the rescued horses with participants of Equine-Guided Coaching Programs and Retreats. To learn more or schedule a Discovery Call, email PAH’s Executive Assistant, Stacy: helloPAHconnect@gmail.com

(above) Nanci with her beloved horse Twister. Twister has been in Nanci’s care since before the founding of Peaceful Acres Horses Rescue Sanctuary. He has played an influential part in helping Nanci in a way that only equines can. He helped her through years of very challenging and devastating times. Twister is one of five horses that Nanci would call her Heart Horses – all of whom have played a major role in who Nanci is today and what the mission of PAH is passionately devoted to  – serving horses (equines) and people.

Hope and Jasper were rescued by Nanci and Team PAH from extreme neglect. They came from different barns, years apart, but their situations had similarities that stood out to me. They were forgotten and left in unbelievably tragic conditions; locked away in the dark and filth. Nanci bravely went into places that others wouldn’t have dared. Her devotion and passion for helping at-risk horses led to the rescue of nearly 300 equines. -SL 

You can read Hope’s Story on our Rescue Stories Page.

Ten years ago Nanci Beyerl moved to a plot of 10 acres in Pattersonville with four horses. She was looking to escape her own past, and decided offering sanctuary to abused, neglected and overworked horses could be a way to do that.

The horse sanctuary she created — Peaceful Acres — is now a 156 acre farm and provides a home to 54 horses. And Nanci is helping other people find peace through what she calls “equine guided experimental learning.”

The horses

Peaceful Acres’ 54 horses come from every sort of background. Some were rescued from neglectful or abusive owners after suffering blunt force trauma to the head, or years in a pen without movement, or being starved. Others were overworked. Some are retired racehorses, and some come from overbreeding. And then there are the horses from “kill pens.”

Nanci explains that kill pens are horse auctions where the animal is auctioned on depending on its meat value. The purchased horses are then shipped over the border and slaughtered.

“Horses are an American icon, they’re seen as pets or companions,” says Nanci, “but in Europe and Asia, they eat horse meat.”

Twenty of the horses at Peaceful Acres were rescued from kill pens; one of them is Pearl.

Pearl was purchased at auction by Peaceful Acres for the grand total of $36.

But Nanci says the price of caring for a horse for a year is between $4,000 and $6,000, so it can be difficult to find the money necessary to take care of a new horse. She says the price is well worth it.

The hardest part of her job, she says, isn’t the cost of care for the horses, but having to say no to taking in more.

People helping horses, horses helping people

Part of the farm’s mission is to not only provide healing for horses, but for people, too. This therapy doesn’t involve riding the horses, rather it puts the people together with the horses in ways to help them work through problems. Nanci says she sometimes has people address the hurdles and temptations in their lives by building them with props around the barn — and then they have to figure out how to get the horses over the hurdles they built. Other times it’s as simple as getting a teenage boy to get a horse to come near him.

“For the most part, it lets people create metaphors for their own lives based on their experiences here,” says Nanci. “What hurdles do you face, what are your strengths, what fences hold you in in your own life, and so on. Here, people can think about what they want out of life and you can only find that in a stable place. So come to the stable.”

But the main component to their equine-guided programs is that the horses provide acceptance and an authentic relationship for people who don’t have either in their lives.

“These horses were denied everything for their whole lives, but now they deny nothing from others,” says Nanci. “They give 110 percent to these people.”

Helping

What Peaceful Acres needs now is a little more support. It takes donations and offers adoption opportunities for the horses; but the horses also need companionship.

“Right now, what we need is volunteers to come and spend time with the horses, take care of them for a few hours, and just be a buddy,” says Nanci. “It’s perfect for people who want horses in their lives again but can’t afford to own or adopt one.”

One of Peaceful Acres’ supporters is Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder. An animal lover, he had followed the farm’s work and rescues over the last few years and made a donation to the farm — he also appeared at a fundraiser for the farm at Proctors this past September.

As thanks for his support, Peacefull Acres named a rescue horse after him. “Woz,” a Belgian draft horse and former Amish workhorse, now spends most of his time high up on the hill overlooking the farm.

That’s Woz in front.

Nanci would be happy to not have to ask for money anymore — she’d like to not even have a job anymore.

“I love my job, but don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be put out of work; I’d love to not be needed. I rescue horses for a living. Put me out of business.”

(2024 Altamont Enterprise)

Relieve your stress as you care for rescued horses