Rails 3 execute custom sql query without a model

I'd recommend using ActiveRecord::Base.connection.exec_query instead of ActiveRecord::Base.connection.execute which returns a ActiveRecord::Result (available in rails 3.1+) which is a bit easier to work with.

Then you can access it in various the result in various ways like .rows, .each, or .to_hash

From the docs:

result = ActiveRecord::Base.connection.exec_query('SELECT id, title, body FROM posts')
result # => #<ActiveRecord::Result:0xdeadbeef>


# Get the column names of the result:
result.columns
# => ["id", "title", "body"]

# Get the record values of the result:
result.rows
# => [[1, "title_1", "body_1"],
      [2, "title_2", "body_2"],
      ...
     ]

# Get an array of hashes representing the result (column => value):
result.to_hash
# => [{"id" => 1, "title" => "title_1", "body" => "body_1"},
      {"id" => 2, "title" => "title_2", "body" => "body_2"},
      ...
     ]

# ActiveRecord::Result also includes Enumerable.
result.each do |row|
  puts row['title'] + " " + row['body']
end

note: copied my answer from here

connection = ActiveRecord::Base.connection
connection.execute("SQL query") 

Maybe try this:

ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(...)
ActiveRecord::Base.connection.execute(...)