First Class Travel Accommodations:
The Ark at JFK
A key component of the sport horse industry is moving our horses easily between North America and other continents. Valuable, high quality Warmbloods available for both performance and breeding are frequently imported from Europe. Sport horses of different types and disciplines are flown to competitions around the world. Additionally, high-value racehorses fly in and out of the country.
By Amber Heintzberger
ity called The Ark at JFK, travel for these animals and their grooms/handlers is set to become more comfortable, safe and convenient.
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Upgraded Facility The Ark at JFK, which is privately owned, includes a horse and livestock departure facility as well as a quarantine center. The $65 million state-of-the-art facility owned by John Cuticelli and Beth Schuette opened its departure facility in Febru- ary 2017 with Phase 2, including the quarantine facilities for arriving animals, slated to open in the second quarter of 2017. Located at Cargo Building 78, on 14.4 acres, the facili- ties are approved by the Board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) and will be fully operational by summer of 2017. John explains that since the 1950s, on the export side,
horses rested at the Vetport Animal Hospital, which he calls “quite a spartan facility that had never been improved over time.” He also explains that for decades horses flying out of JFK went through a complicated and stressful series of steps from the truck delivering them until they boarded an airplane. Now a horse trailer pulls up to the front of The Ark, the horse comes in and rests, is weighed and inspected by the USDA, then walks out the back door into a jet stall and onto the plane. Meanwhile grooms can relax in the lounge with showers, a kitchen and comfortable seating.
All Photos by Amber Heintzberger
any of these horses travel through New York City’s large and very busy John F. Kennedy Interna- tional Airport. Thanks to a newly constructed facil-
The Ark’s full-service Import-Export Center (IEC) features
high-end stabling, a full service veterinary clinic and blood testing laboratory. It also includes a separate pet boarding and grooming facility for small animals, and an avian in-tran- sit quarantine facility. “There are primarily three types of horses that fly. First
are performance horses, whether that’s Thoroughbred race- horses, jumpers and so on,” John continues. “These are the finest athletes in the world and they travel around the world regularly. Rest and care is important to these athletes. Second are breeding horses. Horses are flown around the world for breeding; when you look at their pedigrees it’s amazing. Finally there are the horses for sale. Europe produces some of the finest horses in the world and people ship them to the U.S. all the time. Traveling by a ship would simply take too much time. Mostly horses traveling internationally come through here, but we also have horses flying coast to coast in the U.S. We expect to see five to eight thousand horses total this year.”
Comparing the Old and the New Professional eventing groom Emma Ford, who manages the stable of Olympian Phillip Dutton, co-authored the book World Class Grooming (2015, Trafalgar Square Publishing) and conducts professional grooming seminars, has flown horses in and out of JFK numerous times and described the old Vetport facilities as cramped, dirty and out of date. “The export side was pretty bad,” Emma says. “The horses had to stand diagonally because the stalls were too small,
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