Gentle Giants rescues 4 CLYDESDALES, 1 with a NAIL stuck in its hoof!

So there was this guy who had been a Clyde breeder who's rather old and had had a stroke and had been needing to downsize his herd. He ended up having to send 7 of his horses to an auction up in Athens, PA (practically in New York state) and, unfortunately, GG only heard about it after the horses had already been consigned to the sale. Here's what Christine says about it:

The owner of these horses suffered a stroke and has struggled for several months to sell the horses privately. I had the pleasure of speaking to him on the phone. He is very hopeful that the auctions efforts to promote the horses will draw good homes. We talked at length about what could happen if they sold to a kill buyer, and while he doesn't want that to happen, he is truly in dire straights. He lamented that had he met Gentle Giants beforehand he would have happily sold them to us for a low price, but they are already consigned and he hired a shipper to haul them to the sale. He's an old time gentleman, and won't revoke the consignment, he feels that would be wrong of him. That's why we are going.

Anyway, so GG drove up there yesterday (not me, I was busy buying a car!). Three of the horses sold for well over meat price (two of them actually sold for the most the auction had EVER sold a horse for, $1800 and $2250, respectively). Those three were two pregnant mares and a stallion. The four Gentle Giants got are two 6 or 7 year old mares, one 3 year old filly, and a yearling filly who went through the ring lame. Supposedly, she'd been kicked by one of the other mares and "would be fine in a few days"....

Here's some pics they took of the mares at the sale:


I believe the one in the middle is the one we ended up with and the other two on the sides are the pregnant mares.


The other three.

So they loaded up the horses at around 8PM last night and started making the long drive home (5 hours!). Unfortunately, they had a blowout (one of the inner tires on the dually) somewhere around Scranton and couldn't find ANY roadside assistance that would come out and change the tire on a dually and double wouldn't come out for one hooked up to a loaded horse trailer. After calling God only knows how many folks, Christine finally got a referral to someone who does tows for semi trucks and had some kind of lift that could do the job. Once that was done, they were back on the road, and finally got in around 6:30am today.

Not believing the filly would get better "in a few days", the vet was called out for an emergency visit. What did she find, you ask?

A four inch framing NAIL stuck up near the heel bulb. Before pulling it out, the vet took some x-rays so we could find out what the nail actually penetrated but in the mean time, the filly (named Sunrise) is being treated with IV Antibiotics once daily, oral Antibiotics twice daily, twice daily antibiotic flushes of the wound, oral vasodilator (to help get more medication flowing to area) and regional limb perfusion with antibiotics every 48 hours. Prognosis is extremely guarded.

Here's video of the nail coming out:



If you could, please keep this filly in your thoughts!

I should talk about Kieran but I'm going to talk about horse rescue instead

...what the heck IS IT with certain rescue organizations finding "a home" for horses they're pulling out of the frying pan (and possibly tossing back in the fire, who knows?) but then raising money to "bail" these horses and send them to their new homes for free?

If these new homes can't afford $1000 or less (which is what the "bail" often runs) to rescue the horse up front, why are we supposed to feel comfortable that they can, you know, afford boarding and feeding. Or well-fitting tack. Or, God forbid, surprise vet bills? Not to mention all the routine vet stuff and farrier work and dental work, et cetera.

It just drives me nuts that these people are essentially getting a horse for free that they may not actually be able to afford. I know the argument generally is something to the effect that they have funds set aside for regular horse expenses, but the several hundred dollars or more up front would deplete it and then...well...they wouldn't be able to handle the routine stuff so well (at which point I want to say: well save up the amount you think you'll need and rescue one of these horses only AFTER you're able to do both). I can kind of see that (though I still don't like it).

I think I'd feel better with the whole situation if we had something more akin to Kiva. Someone wants to rescue a horse and gets approved as a home or whatever, they can't afford the purchase cost up front (or don't want to deplete their savings, and so on), a posting gets put up and people who want to help out can raise funds to "bail" the horse and send it to the new home. But those funds are actually a loan and the home is required to repay the loan within a specified time period. Those who lent the money can either get back what they put in or they can opt to roll that money over to someone else.

I really like that idea, actually. I think, with proper setup, it might help mitigate a lot of problems I've seen with people donating money and never seeing what happens to it. Plus making new homes responsible for ALL of the costs associated with getting the horse, not just getting one to show up on their doorstep for free.

First...a rant

Okay, I'm going to get to talking about my weekend but first....

If you are the owner of a horse rescue, one presumes you understand the concept of, "if you, personally, do not have enough money to get the horse, you probably don't have enough money, personally, to KEEP the horse." It's a decent rule of thumb (though of course, doesn't hold so much when you start talking about, say....upper four figure and up horses). Heck, if you were to have a potential adopter that starts talking about, "well....I'm going to need to get a bunch of people to loan me some money so I can adopt the horse" I would HOPE you'd say, "uh...actually...no, you don't get a horse" or at least consider the possibility that maybe it isn't the right home.

That's not really my rant.

My rant is this: if you're the owner of a rescue and you want a horse for your own PERSONAL use....well, you need to use your own PERSONAL money to procure said horse.

What do you not need to do?

You need to not get your supporters to DONATE YOU THEIR MONEY so that you can get a horse for your own PERSONAL use!

My mind. It is blown.

No, I won't say who it is here. But I don't understand how someone could blithely talk about this and....NO ONE CALLED THIS PERSON OUT.

Does that seem right to you?

==============================================

And now, here, my weekend:

We went camping! It was cool! (except for the rain, and Christa's near-stomping-by-horse experience and Kieran being a bit of a PITA for the first part of the second ride.)

Here, have pictures!










Kieran would look SO CUTE right there if David wasn't in the way!

Backlog!

Three rides to talk about. I really need to get in the habit of updating this more regularly but oh well!

The first was last Thursday, I went up to Gentle Giants and rode Carley. Well, first I brought horses in from the field, hayed and watered, then I rode Carley. We had a really good ride, which I was pleased about. Near the end, I gave her a loose rein and tried steering her with just my leg and seat. Which was sort of hit or miss but I think she got the concept, she was just more interested in going the direction she wanted to go.

I've been keeping my rides out at GG to around a half hour or so. I guess I could make them longer but I always feel like I might be taking advantage or something. That and I sort of get to be at a loss for things to do. I hate to just make them trot around and around the arena. I suppose next time I should think ahead and set up trot poles. Or visualize us doing serpentines and smaller circles and things like that to keep it interesting. And gait transitions.

Yeah, I think about all this stuff now....

Probably a big part of it is that I'm still very much a student and very much in "listen for what the instructor tells you to do" mode and feel weird having a whole arena to myself and having to make it up as I go along.

What do you do when you're just riding in the arena?

---

Other than that, Monday was riding lesson day at Columbia Horse Center. I had thought I was going to ride Confetti (one of the "Intermediate" horses) but a few last minute changes apparently led to me riding Valentine (one of the first horses I rode there. He's a dear old boy. And apparently used to do some pretty high level dressage which is cool.) instead. Which was a good thing because in a class of six people? Only two of the horses that night were "leaders". Valentine and one of the others. So Valentine and I ended up in front for most of the night. But at least he's quite willing to be there and I didn't have to push him about it. Didn't even need to be carrying my crop, really.

My favorite part was near the end when we had to pull our stirrups up over the saddle and work on a sitting trot with no stirrups. Kristy mentioned that Valentine was likely the bounciest in the group but she didn't think I'd have a problem with it. And I didn't! (My sitting trot used to be horrendous, bouncing all over the place, so I'm really pleased that it's become easier for me.) I still wouldn't want to ride Mickey's trot sitting (pogo stick!) but I feel better about doing it in general.

---

Last night was back to Gentle Giants where I rode Treadway for the first time. He's also a nice old boy. Twenty years old, Percheron cross, former eventer. And apparently he has a hard mouth and very light sides.

We spent the entire (no more than twenty minutes) ride trotting. Except for right at the beginning when I mostly got him to walk around the arena both directions. He was determined to trot. He'd even trot verrrrry slowly so it was "like" walking but...two beat gait. I posted about it here.

Eventually it seemed to be we were both getting more frustrated with each other than anything. Me feeling like I had to really hold him in and hang off his mouth and him wanting to go. I got a good suggestions in the thread I linked to that I'll try next time we ride. Relax, take my leg off him more, shorter half halts. (It's quite possible I wasn't "squeeze-releasing" as much as I thought I was so he was just getting continual pull.) I'm also going to ask someone to really stay in there and watch, at least for a few minutes, and remind me of the stuff I should be doing. ;)

That said, I figure I'll be riding Big Red tomorrow. May depend on how early I get there. Early enough and I could ride before evening lessons and then again after. Hmmm.

Sailor seems to have an adopter. This has produced mixed feelings. I'll have to give him extra love until he goes.

That's the only problem with being at a horse rescue. The horses aren't supposed to stick around. So you grow attached and then have to say goodbye. Which I knew going in but still.