OCALA, FL (352today.com) – The 2025 Horse Farms Forever Conservation Summit at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Auditorium on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, featured keynote speaker Dr. Temple Grandin, a pioneering voice in animal science and autism advocacy.
Dr. Grandin shared with the audience “How Horses Think.”
Grandin has revolutionized livestock handling through her groundbreaking designs that promote calm and humane treatment of animals, changing not just an industry but the way people think about animals altogether.
Dr. Grandin’s portrait is being unveiled Friday, Nov. 14, 2025, at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. She is a professor at Colorado State University, a best-selling author and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2017.
Connecting through understanding
Grandin is renowned for her unique insights into how animals think and feel. Dr. Grandin’s expertise and competency have transformed practices in livestock handling and animal welfare, said Amy Mangan, Advent Health Ocala Foundation executive director, who introduced Grandin.
“She’s inspired the way that we think about empathy and empowerment,” said Mangan. “In her discussions, she brings to life as what she refers to as open-door possibilities. And this idea is found embracing opportunities that surround us. Those moments we know we can take meaningful action for change, not only in our lives, but the lives of others.”
Finding her place
Grandin overcame a number of challenges on her journey. She was an autistic child who didn’t speak until she was 4 years old and was bullied in high school. However, she found solace around horses–the only place that she wasn’t bullied. She often credits animals with saving her teenage years.
She had friends riding horses and exhibiting in shows, but just being around horses and in the barn gave her a tremendous sense of purpose and established a work ethic, which provided a deep foundation that has played a prominent role in her success.
“I had nine stalls to clean every day, and I had to run a horse barn,” said Grandin. “I learned how to work, and a lot of autistic kids aren’t doing that. Also, the work that I’ve done on cattle equipment. I’ve worked with people who are definitely on the autism spectrum, mechanical geniuses, they can build anything.”
Grandin also placed an emphasis on getting retired teachers to work with children who are on the autism spectrum, children who are three years of age, and are nonverbal.
“If you want to understand a horse or any animal, you have to get away from words,” said Grandin. “It’s a sensory-based world, it’s not a word-based world. What is it seeing? Some of the first work I ever did with cattle, I got into the cattle handling facility, I saw they were scared of shadows and reflections, things we don’t normally think about.”
Maximizing one’s potential
Everything that Grandin thinks about is a picture, and she explained to the audience how her memory is like the pictures on your phone. Until she was in her late 30s, she was under the impression that everyone was a visual thinker.
“It was a shock to me that a lot of people are not visual thinkers, they may be mathematical thinkers, word thinkers or maybe mixtures,” said Grandin. “When you realize that people think differently, you get a lot of insight. You get a lot of insight into horses and other animals when I realized other people didn’t think in pictures.”
Experience and exposure
Horses respond differently to new things, she said. If a beach chair is in the middle of a pasture, the horses will move toward the object; however, if a box is blowing the wind, they’ll react with fear.
“The animals that are genetically low-fear, they’ll come up to the box first,” said Grandin. “Something new is attractive, when an animal can voluntarily approach, and scary if you shove it in their face, that’s something that you don’t want to do. You want to get horses used to flags at shows, let’s decorate the pasture fence with flags, and let your animals walk up to it.”
If a horse gets really upset, it takes 20 minutes for them to calm down, said Grandin.
“If something happens suddenly, it’s scary to animals. It’s also scary to people with autism,” said Grandin. “People with autism tend to be high fear. I see a lot of dogs [that] lead too sheltered a life. I was working with some consultants, where another person had racehorses, and there was a green and a white awning, at the one racetrack that it was afraid of, but no other racetrack had a green and white striped awning. It might be a good idea to get them gradually used to that. Get them used to everything. There’s a reason why service dog puppies are taken everywhere, it’s to get them used to everything,”
Importance of an industry
Horse Farms Forever is committed to expanding community awareness of the importance of conservation and preservation of greenspace, protecting horse farms and Marion County’s Farmland Preservation Area, unique features that have been such a huge part of the area’s character, commerce and culture, so they can be enjoyed by future generations, remains a priority.
“Our focus and our goal is to bring more awareness about one of our main missions which is to preserve the character and culture that horses and horse farms bring to Marion County,” said HFF’s Busy Shires. “We’re also highlighting the incredible bond that horses and people share together. So, over the past seven years, we’ve worked very hard to raise awareness of the critical need to protect our horse farms and agricultural lands, and not just because of its scenic beauty, but because of our $4.8 billion equine industry, which has defined Marion County as the Horse Capital of the World.”
Stewards of the land
Horse Farms Forever’s Acorn Conservation Award is presented to a landowner that has made a significant contribution to protecting land or horse farms in Marion County. This year’s recipient of the distinguished honor was the Drake family.
The Drake family is one of the area’s pioneering families that settled in Florida and in Marion County, said Shires. They’re also one of the first families that have been able to preserve their land, and their family’s ranch has passed down through four generations.
The Drake family’s history in Florida dates back to 1871, when Drake Ranch was founded by Alice Hawker Drake. About 100 years ago, she and her son, Trusten Polk Drake, purchased a large part of old Florida, and would take that sizable tract of land and make it into their home for generations, said Ann Louise Drake. In 2002, Trusten “Trusty” Polk Drake, III and George MacKay Drake, made a decision that would shape the Drake family’s future: They placed 5,800 acres of the ranch into a conservation easement.
Previous recipients of the Acorn Conservation Award include Charlotte Weber, Live Oak Stud and Live Oak Plantation, 2021; John and Leslie Malone, Bridlewood Farm, 2022; John and Shirley Rudnianyn, the largest private landowners in Marion County, 2023; and Guy Marwick, whose efforts have protected thousands of acres of land in Marion County, 2024.