On a Sunday in mid-October, the gravel drive at 29 Fowler Road will fill with the smell of barbecue and waffles, the clatter of a pony's hooves, and the particular chaos of children who have just spotted a six-foot-tall bird. The Westfield Riding Club Food Festival runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Oct. 18, and it is free to walk into.
The lineup of food trucks includes The Saucy Mama, Wandering Waffles, Las Jibaritas, and John's BBQ. Beyond the trucks, organizers expect nearly two dozen retail and craft vendors, plus a baked goods area. Families get a dedicated kids' area and pony rides, and Boomer, the Springfield Thunderbirds mascot, is expected to make an appearance.
What makes the event unusual is where it happens. The Westfield Riding Club is a nonprofit founded in 1939 by a group of horse enthusiasts whose stated purpose was fostering interest in the use, care, breeding, and protection of horses. The club still runs on that original mission: it organizes shows, trail rides, clinics, educational seminars, and contests, and it says it particularly stresses youth participation at all levels. Its own description of itself is disarmingly plain -- "great people, great horses, loads of fun" -- and the goal it states is to foster healthy horses, good riders, and excellent horsemanship.
That a horse club would host a food-truck festival is less of a departure than it first sounds. The organization has always been a community institution as much as an equestrian one, built around socializing and skill-building as much as competition. Opening the gates to a few thousand neighbors for a fall afternoon fits the club's stated belief that bringing devoted horse owners together builds bonds that help people and animals grow.
The festival itself is young. It began as a Fall Fest organized by Isel Shalypin, who owns the Wandering Waffle food truck, with the explicit aim of turning it into an annual tradition. That first edition, held Sept. 13, 2025, featured food trucks, craft vendors, pony rides, and a visit from Boomer, who appeared between 2 and 3 p.m. that day to promote the upcoming Thunderbirds season and pose for photographs with kids and adults. The event returned the following spring as the second annual Food Truck Festival on Sunday, May 3, 2026, running 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a truck roster that included Wandering Waffles, The Saucy Mama, Cote's Cooks, YJ Catering, and Citrus & Soiree.
The October 2026 edition is the third festival hosted at the riding club, and organizers describe it as an effort to grow what they hope becomes a fixture on the local fall calendar. The free admission and open-gate format are central to that ambition: this is not a ticketed equestrian show but a community event aimed at giving families a fall outing.
Boomer's presence ties the festival to another Springfield institution. The Thunderbirds, the city's American Hockey League franchise, introduced Boomer as their first-ever mascot. Boomer has been a fixture at local events since -- the kind of mascot that shows up at a horse club's food festival because that is precisely what he was built to do.
The food vendors carry their own local histories. The Saucy Mama is Dawn McBride's operation, named for her great-grandmother's pasta sauce recipe, which came with the family from Naples, Italy. McBride was laid off from her job at MGM Springfield during the coronavirus pandemic in 2021 and leaned on her culinary experience to buy a food truck. She and her husband, Michael McBride, later expanded into a grab-and-go kitchen at 1 Cooper St. in Agawam, selling pints of sauce and meatballs, Sicilian pizza slices, mozzarella-filled risotto balls, and spaghetti pie. McBride is also one of the people spreading the word about the Westfield festival.
For anyone who has never been to the riding club, the address is easy to miss -- Fowler Road sits off the beaten path in Westfield, and the grounds are built for horses rather than crowds. That is part of the appeal. On Oct. 18 the fields that normally host shows and trail rides will hold picnic blankets, craft tables, and a line for waffles, with pony rides offering a first taste of the club's actual business to kids who may never have been on a horse. Admission is free, the gates open at 10 a.m., and the whole thing wraps by 3 p.m. -- early enough to get home before the fall evening sets in.