# The Beginning



## Trauma (Sep 2, 2021)

_*Names of horses have been changed*_ 

In the over 170 horses I have handled, not one of them had chosen me. And I am a strong believer of the horses choosing you, I have experienced it before. My friend who now owns that horse today was approached by a horse who was scared of everyone else on the property and she was continuously being approached and followed when she went out into the pasture with him. We never did anything with that horse without her being there, she really calmed him and made him comfortable. But in no way am I saying to not get a horse that doesn't choose you, because I still had many horses that I connected with and formed bonds with even though they didn't "choose me" and you can build relationships with your horse regardless.

I struggle a lot with this because the horses that I was drawn to were very emotionally damaged by their previous lives and most of them didn't go into lasting homes afterwards. 

Tor was thought to be some kind of ranch horse (he was branded), he was exceptionally good under saddle and on the ground, but whatever happened to him before had traumatized him to be around humans. He wouldn't get blanketed in the winter because no one could catch him. The only reason I was able to catch him was because of an injury he had out in field and then he was put on stall rest afterwards. When he was ready, I worked with him everyday for nearly two weeks to get him ready to get his hooves trimmed. The farrier in particular made him extremely on edge, even though he picked up his feet and let you work with them perfectly. I spent so much time gaining his trust, he was one of the really important ones to me. 

Tier I didn't even have a day with just me and him. I had expressed how drawn to him I was, and the owner of the rescue told me that he had already been adopted. So I kept my distance from him so I wouldn't get too attached. Within the week, the owner told me the adoption fell through and I ended up bringing him up to the barn just to groom and spend time with him. The same day, the owner messaged me to put him on a trailer that was on it's way. I nearly cried putting him on the trailer. I didn't have much time with him, but I really connected with him in just the few moments or hour I got to spend with him and I was sad I didn't get to have more time to get to know him. 

Red was the most important horse in my time there, I spent many days building a bond with him to the point he would come to me when I called or if he saw me across the field, and was very comfortable with me while under saddle even though he was green broke and previously abused. I recently lost my childhood horse that I leased growing up, and while it was a sad moment for me I only felt tears well up when I was writing a social media post about him, I never really cried for the loss of him. But when I found out that Red had passed alongside the horse mentioned in the post above, I was completely distraught. My husband came home to me bawling in the bathroom, I read his name in the article that was released about the man who neglected the horses, and I felt my heart stop. I stated to the owner and the barn manager at the time that I wanted to be there to put him on the trailer, and very unluckily for me I was actually out of town when he left. But I was never even told when he was being transported to this new home. I showed up to work after the weekend and he was just gone. I never got a proper goodbye and the way he died was just so traumatizing and unnatural it devastates me to think of what he was going through in his final days.

Typical chestnut mare, Teal was extremely unapproachable by the look on her face. But it was all for show of course. I didn't really want much to do with her when she arrived, and she was out in pasture for a long time before we ever really did anything with her. I was worried she wouldn't be well trained, or that something emotionally happened to her because of how standoffish she was. But I couldn't have been more wrong. Lesson on chestnut mares, lesson not to judge a book by it's cover. She needed a little time to connect with her riders, and mounting was a struggle, but once you sat down in the saddle she was the calmest ride I've ever had. She did struggle with strangers most of the time, but if you knew her, you knew her well. First impressions meant nothing by the time I connected with her and let her connect with me.

Every single horse I met has their own story for me, whether it is a big or small impact on my life. There were many other horses that meant something more to me than just caring for them, but these were the ones that are most memorable and important to me.


----------



## knightrider (Jun 27, 2014)

These are interesting stories and I hope you write more.


----------



## Trauma (Sep 2, 2021)

For the most part, horses who run through the kill pen auction are _usually_ there for a reason. There is a very off chance that a barn goes out of business, or that an owner puts them through the auction not knowing that they can end up through the kill pen pipeline. Out of 170+ horses, I only know of three personally who have just had that kind of bad luck. All the others were I guess more "intentionally" put through the kill pens.

We had a substantial amount of cribbers, though that may not have been the sole reason they ended up at the rescue. 

Many horses had old joint and leg injuries, usually the off the track thoroughbreds but occasionally an old ranch horse or just someone completely random. Knees and hocks tended to be the most damaged when it came to old injuries, and usually they were pretty noticeable at a glance. Ringbone was also common to find. Would you be surprised if I said arthritis was a reason they were in the pen? A good amount of horses were also blind in one eye. And aside from anything physical, heart murmurs and asthma were also extremely common. A few horses who stood out to me regarding stranger injuries was one that had a hip fracture. Another young horse I remember with a deformity in her face that I'm not sure if she was born that way or had something happen to her. One mare had a conformation deformity that made her lame for the rest of her life, she was only about five years old. And one other mare had severe DSLD that the auction was careful taking photos so that it wasn't visible.

Physical injuries or deformities weren't the only reason they could end up through the pens. Behavioral and training issues were big too. Very simply, young horses who weren't trained or not trained in a consistent or healthy way. A 17 year old mare who I was really drawn to (I was always drawn to the damaged and crazy) was nearly impossible to handle. Would bolt out of your hands if you weren't paying attention. I tried to work with grooming her and attempting to pick up her feet. She had a killer swing on her back leg, but after a few swings and misses, she would turn around and bite you. It is completely unknown why she acted this way or where she even came from, I was the one that named her shortly after her arrival while we didn't even have her name from her previous life. We had another older 15 year old or so gelding that was really incredible on the ground, leading and lunging. A kid could handle him. And when we pulled the saddle out for the first time he started shaking uncontrollably at the sight of it. The owner of the rescue was told he was ridden to round up the auction horses at the lot, but we had a very hard time believing in that. He bronced hard and endlessly when we went to mount. We did have a BLM mustang that would drag or trample you to get what she wanted, we did refer to her as queen of the property often. We had a few bronc horses. Many, many horses who we couldn't catch and had to corral when we needed them for farrier work or whatever else, we tried not to corral them if we didn't have to. The miniature horses and the donkeys were actually more common to be runners.

It seems like we usually had more mares than geldings on the property at a time, but looking at my charts, we had more geldings than mares overall in my time there. We had mostly bays run through the property, but chestnuts are a close second. Surprisingly to me, grays and then paints were next in line statistically. Twelve chestnut mares on the day I left if we want to bring up that stereotype.

And very, very sadly, people did put their very old and retired horses through the pen instead of keeping them to their last day or euthanizing them. A special horse to me, I will call him Rice, was a complete sweetheart who loved people and would come across the field to greet children. He was estimated at at least 25 years old. He gave me my own lifetime goal of fostering or even adopting an old horse when I am able to make their final days just happy and carefree.


----------

