Classy Lane Stables rebuilds after barn fire that killed 43 horses

When Ken Parke enters Barn 6, he strides towards the centre of the building, stops, points down at a hole in the old cement floor, and says, "That exploded during the fire."

It's the only sign of what happened two months ago, when flames ripped through a horse barn at Classy Lane Stables in Puslinch Township. The fire destroyed Barn 1, killing the 43 horses inside.

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"It was a rough ride into work," recalls Parke, who heard about the fire the night it happened, but wasn't able to get to the property until the next day. "I experienced my first bout of shock. I couldn't have driven if I wanted to. I was just shaking uncontrollably."

Now, as he stands where the old barn once stood, he says the memory of it still haunts him.

"I don't know where the feelings are coming from," he says. "I know the barns are as safe as they can be, and I'm sure this one is going to be as good or better than any of them."

The new barn is a giant, cavernous structure of fresh lumber stretching out over the floor of the old barn. Down the centre and along each side the floor is dirt. This is where the former stalls were located and the new ones will be built. Cement slabs that run the length of the building are where horses again will be groomed, tacked up, and hitched to sulkies.

Except for some additional office space, Parke says Barn 6 will look identical to Barn 1 when it opens in May.

The new barn stands on the eastern edge of Classy Lane's 135 acre farm, right next to the facility's seven-eighths mile track.

Another barn stands between it and owner Barb Millier's house, but she doesn't need to see the new structure to know it's there. 

"The guys have been sending us pictures daily, so we get daily reports on how it's coming along."

Millier was in Florida when the old barn burned down. She booked her husband a seat on the next flight to Toronto, but didn't make the trip herself until a few weeks later. 

"When I come up, it was gone. Everything was gone," she says. "They had it levelled and everything trucked away. They just had straw on the foundation, getting ready for rebuilding."

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She says the decision to rebuild was practical: those who owned horses in the old barn were buying new horses, and they needed somewhere to put them.

"You know, a couple of them have been here since day one. We didn't want to lose them to another training centre."

All of the trainers who lost horses in the fire continue to work at Classy Lane Stables, but they're being housed in the facility's summer barn. They will move into the new barn when it's built, but not everyone is excited about that. 

"It's worrying," says Cindy Acton, who looked after five horses that were killed in the fire, including million-dollar racehorse Apprentice Hanover. "We know what happened and it's the same spot. So, it will feel a little bit eerie working in there... knowing what used to be there."

Acton returned to work shortly after the fire, and says it was tough to be taking care of new horses, rather than her old friends. She says it will take time, not only to get used to them, but to get used to the new building.

Horse trainer Chantal Mitchell agrees, but says she'd much rather see a building on the foundation of the old barn than see nothing at all. 

"When you're out on the race track, you jog right past it. So, you see it all the time," she says. "There's promise there when it's up. Whereas, if it was just an empty spot, it seemed eerie and it seemed wrong."

Unlike other trainers who lost horses, Mitchell was on the property when Barn 1 was burning. She and her partner even opened one of the barn doors, trying to rescue some of the horses but were repelled back by heat and smoke. 

"The worst thing was knowing there was nothing you could do," she says. "You knew they were in there. You could hear them thrashing and acting up, and there was just absolutely nothing that you could do to help them."

She hopes that when she first enters the new barn, she will be able to feel a sense of respect for the 14 horses she lost. 

Her partner, Kris Dicenzo, also sees building the new barn on the old site as a sign of respect for the horses that lost their lives on January 4.

"The first time I went back on the track and then came around the turn on the track and saw the barn was gone, it was really strange," he says. "I didn't know what to think."

"Building that barn and moving on, it kind of keeps their legacy going. Horses will live there again and thrive and do well."

A memorial will be built behind Barn 6, in honour of the horses that died in the fire. It will replace an impromptu collection of signs naming the horses painted on slabs of wood and nailed to the trees that line the driveway. 

• LISTEN: Owners recall devastating fire, look to future with optimism (from CBC Kitchener-Waterloo)