Our Board
CDHR’s Board of Directors volunteer their skills, time, and expertise to make CDHR a strong and vital nonprofit organization. Our Board of Directors is entrusted with three key responsibilities for CDHR: advocacy, fundraising, and strategic governance. Board members provide essential guidance and support to the organization, putting their professional expertise to work to ensure that CDHR is run like a business, with transparency and sustainability for the future.
Stacey Golub, DVM
Founder & Executive Director
Stacey Golub, DVM, “Doc,” as she is affectionately called around the rescue, is an equine veterinarian and owns her own practice, Connecticut Valley Equine Veterinary Services. Dr. Golub graduated from Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1998 and started Connecticut Valley Equine in 2005. Connecticut Valley Equine is an ambulatory (mobile) equine veterinary practice based in Central Connecticut. When she has ‘free time,” you can find Dr. Golub exhibiting her Shire horses in hand or driving.
Dr. Golub founded Connecticut Draft Horse Rescue (CDHR) in 2011 as a way to “give back” to the horses that shaped her direction in life. Since its inception, CDHR has been able to give over 160 draft horses a second chance at life, saving them through intercepts, auctions, cruelty/neglect seizures as well as providing a home for horses whose owners can no longer provide care for them.
Sarah Grote
Vice President
Sarah Grote serves as the Vice President of CDHR, where she has led fundraising, public relations, and capital campaign initiatives since 2015. An award-winning photographer and painter, her work has been exhibited in galleries, juried shows, and museums throughout Connecticut and beyond. In 2022, Sarah authored Journey of the Dream Team, chronicling the lives of Spencer and Oliver, two Percherons rescued by CDHR. The book received the WINNIE Award for “Literary - Rescue Books” at the 2023 EQUUS Film Festival. "Saved: Equine Rescues of Connecticut", a book collaboration and fundraiser with author Andrea Steele, was published in 2024.
Sarah is also the Gallery Director of the Essex Art Association and the Administrator of the Essex Board of Trade (EssexCT.com). Most recently, she was elected President of Connecticut Women Artists, Inc., one of the nation’s oldest women’s art organizations, founded in 1929.
Andrea Steele
Treasurer
Andrea Steele is an accountant by profession, working as a corporate officer in two insurance-related organizations during her business career. A lifelong equestrian, Andrea creates and produces Advanced Equine Studies, college-level video education experiences for riders and equine caregivers worldwide. The series has received two prestigious EQUUS Film Festival "Best of" awards for educational productions. Andrea is also the author of mystery novels, and in 2024, she teamed with the Connecticut Draft Horse Rescue's photographer Sarah Grote to publish SAVED: Equine Rescues of Connecticut-an art-style book with proceeds donated to horse rescues in our state.
Martha Wilkie
Secretary
Martha’s love for horses was instilled in her before she could walk and her parents set her on a saddle. She had horses all of her younger life, but family obligations took priority and horses were in the past for a long time. Once time would allow, Martha came back to her roots at CDHR about 6 years ago and participates in several volunteer committees in addition to her role as CDHR’s secretary.
