Over the past 6 months I have found myself coming across a number of horses in very poor condition. I never had any intentions of saving horses, economically speaking it just doesn't make sense. Yet when you see the condition of some of these animals, as emotionless as I try to stay, one cannot help but pity these poor souls. Vegas, aka Skinny Bones, was the first horse I could not refuse. After I brought him home, I thought to myself..."dear lord what did I get myself into!" I had no idea how to care for a horse in such far gone condition. I never in a million years thought I would see him 100% healthy and thought what am I going to do with him!? Much to my surprise, Vegas’ road to recovery was rapid. In as little as 2 months he was starting to look like a horse again. His personality went from dull, cranky and unsocialable to energetic, playful and friendly. He has a personality all his own and one can't help but smile and laugh at his antics in the barn. He is now a barn favorite. Fortunately Vegas turned out to be a fairly well trained horse. He body clips, trailers, ties, and is broke to ride. After my experience with Vegas it puzzled me how someone could nearly kill an animal such as this....which brings me to our next group of horses.

While on a mission to find one of my clients a show horse, I came across an add for inexpensive very well bred warmbloods, not something you see everyday. These horses were advertised as a herd dispersal, all horses had famous bloodlines, but had not had much training. So with open minds me and a friend headed up North to take a peak at these "show quality prospects". What we found was horrifying. It was something you would see on the animal planet with an animal hoarder. There were over 20 horses on a 20 acre hillside.....no feed was being provided, and had probably not been in months. The pasture was nothing but muddy divot holes. To see one or two horses in poor condition is awful in itself, but to see an entire herd of skeletons was like looking into an animal internment camp. My immediate thought was "leave right now, don't even get out of the car". But after an nearly 4 hour trip I decided to take a closer look at the horses.

We headed down the hillside and began to walk up to the horses one by one, sort of disorganized and baffled. Neither my friend or I said much, but we decided we had come so far we might as will see if any of these horses could move well. One by one we haltered horses that caught our eye for whatever reason and trotted them across the front lawn. We ended up pulling three mares out that seemed to have to most potential, sad to say, but the only three that we felt were worth saving, not that it was easy to leave the other twenty behind. Much to our surprise our offer to give these mares a good home and a very small amount of money was not enough for the owner who felt insulted that we had offered so little for her “quality bred” horses…that were starving to death. What a situation to be in. So we made another offer, slightly more money, but we wanted one more horse, a grey gelding who we both had liked earlier but concluded was going to be too difficult to train as he was practically wild. The owner agreed and that is how we ended up with our four Swedish skinnies! One mare has been taken by a client, the other three are our newest additions. So the adventure continues. I can only hope they have the same success as Vegas. He is the most rewarding horse I have ever owned.