Prospect Park's Stable Launches 'Hoof Harted' Compost Program

WINDSOR TERRACE, BROOKLYN — Big piles of horse droppings are coming to community gardens across Brooklyn that will have locals asking, hoof harted?

Say it out loud. There you go.

That's because Brooklyn equine (formerly known as Kensington Stables) is launching a new composting program with a product derived from its own horse stock and named after a funnily and punningly named racer.

The "hoof harted..." organic compost's name comes from owner John Quadrozzi Jr.'s preference for honesty in marketing, he told Patch.

"When you're dealing with something like manure you have to make it a little bit more playful," Quadrozzi said. "The odor is negative. [The name] is kind of catchy."

But Quadrozzi is quick to note that the stable's new fertilizer doesn't smell and won't attract rodents because its been carefully treated with help from Red Hook Farms.

Quadrozzi began thinking about what do with horse manure almost immediately after the Red Hook industrialist took over the stable in 2018, he said.

"The stuff was being trucked back to upstate, that's a big carbon footprint," he said. "Let's see what we can do locally."

"Hoof harted..." will be donated to local community gardens and in future the excess may become available for sale to support the Prospect Park equestrian center, Quadrozzi said.

This new venture comes more than a year after he bought the stable on Caton Place and East Eighth Street and saved it from imminent bankruptcy.

The composting will be done at the Gowanus Bay Terminal, where Quadrozzi is president, and was developed with Added Value Farm in Red Hook.

While Brooklyn equine will be giving away its compost for free, Quadrozzi says it's a sound business move.

"We just wanted to establish good networking," he said. "Right now we want to push it into the community as a give back."

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect Added Value Farm now works with the Red Hook Initiative and has a new name.