Woman's cross-country horse ride against domestic violence coming to Tarentum

A woman riding across the country on horseback to bring awareness to domestic violence will make a stop in Tarentum on Monday.

Meredith Cherry and her horse, Apollo, are expected to be at Riverview Memorial Park at noon on Monday, according to the Alle-Kiski Valley H.O.P.E. Center, a domestic violence shelter.

Cherry started her ride in California more than two years ago, on Jan. 1, 2017. She has allotted four years to reach her goal of a continuous ride of about 10,000 miles to 48 states, ending in 2020.

Pennsylvania is the 28th state she has visited.

On her journey, Cherry visits domestic violence agencies, schools and community centers to bring attention to the issue of domestic violence.

“Domestic violence is not fun to talk about but, it’s such an important issue,” Cherry says in a video on the website for her journey, “The Centauride.”

Cherry and her horse, a Peruvian Paso-Mustang palomino gelding, arrived in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. On Thursday, a post on the ride’s Facebook page said they were in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and on the Montour Trail.

“I had to ask permission for part of it, where horses are not normally allowed, but the trail office was super nice and let me do it,” she said.

Cherry says she escaped a violent relationship a few years ago.

“What I had missed most during my marriage were horses and travel,” she says on her site. “Thus came about the wonderful, crazy idea to buy a horse with my paltry divorce settlement and ride it around the country.

“And since I feel so grateful for this opportunity, and so saddened at the thought that anyone else is going through what I did, I felt it was right to use the ride to help everyone I could meet along the way.”