The horse that ran up I-95 is no longer nameless
The choice was between "I-95 North" and "Freeway." The children of the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club tossed horseshoes to decide.
The Dutch Harness horse that took over I-95 during a morning rush hour inspired a Flappy Bird-style computer game, jokes from Philly police, and far too many equine puns — all before he had a chance to get a name.
The 17-hands-tall gelding had arrived at the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club in Strawberry Mansion only a day before his breakout run Tuesday down Kelly Drive and onto I-676 and eventually I-95, giving the club that has taught horseback riding free of charge to Philly youth since 2004 no time to name him.
Traditionally, the 15 kids that form the club get together to decide a new horse’s name. On Saturday, they finally got the chance to do so for the week’s celebrity by — appropriately — tossing horseshoes.
“Freeway, he is not a bad horse; he is very sweet,” said 16-year-old Tramain Garvin, as he petted the head of what was still a nameless horse Saturday morning but calling it after a Philly-born entertainer. “He was one of my favorite rappers growing up and it reminds me of my dad, so I am hoping that’s going to be his name.”
Club member Aazim Farrell was of a different opinion.
“He don’t look like a Freeway,” said Farrell. “He went running on I-95. His stable name is 95, full name I-95.”
To settle it, two younger club members each threw a horseshoe. The one that traveled the farthest would be the winner.
The “I-95 North” horseshoe hit the mud first, followed by the one tossed in favor of “Freeway.”
“It’s Freeway!” the crowd exclaimed, amid mixed reactions from children and staff.
How did Freeway escape to I-95?
The Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club suspects the horse escaped as a result of vandalism that involved the animal being released.
A similar incident happened in 2023, according to spokesperson Nicole Bryan. At the time, all the horses were let out of their stables. Due to their nature, and being acquainted with the area, the animals roamed around the perimeter instead of running away.
This time, Freeway, being new, didn’t know how to react, Bryan said.
“They tend not to run just for the sake of heading out,” Bryan said. “But, he is new and was probably like ‘Well, I don’t know this place so I’m going to try and find my old [home].’”
The previous home for Freeway was somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, where he is presumed to have been an Amish buggy horse. That is a theory that can’t be confirmed due to the lack of information provided by auctions, Bryan said, but that would explain why it wasn’t hard for Freeway to run from Strawberry Mansion to Kelly Drive before crossing onto I-676 and up I-95 toward the great unknown — for him, anyway — of Northeast Philadelphia.
» READ MORE: Can you make it farther than the horse did on I-95? Play this game to find out.
The club’s founder, Ellis Ferrell — who has been recognized for decades as a pillar of Philly’s close-knit community of Black riders, loosely inspiring the 2021 film Concrete Cowboy — recalls seeing the horse in the news.
“Those four little white socks and the white spot on the face, I knew it was one of my horses,” Ferrell said.
But, Freeway is not the only animal that has gone rogue and impacted transportation of late: New Jersey Transit still sells plush versions of Ricardo — the bull who stopped trains for 45 minutes at Newark Penn Station in December. And on Thursday, a ram on the loose had police and public works employees in Mount Laurel scrambling.
As the Fletcher Street Club readies to move to its second set of stables in East Fairmount Park, the group hopes the attention Freeway has attracted can shine a light on the support needed to provide young Philadelphians with recreational space.
“I hope the government recognizes this program more because it’s kids like us, we live in a poor neighborhood, and this place provides a home whether you are going through a rough time or not,” said Garvin, who favored the Freeway name.