Sometimes the universe has its own plans!
I admit, I was casually looking for another horse. Tragic and heartbreaking losses over the past 5 years have left me with just Merlin and Oz. With Merlin headed off to the trainer in less than a month, Oz was in desperate need of a new companion! So I asked friends to keep an eye out for something that might work…
…and that’s how I ended up purchasing a horse…sight unseen…at 4 AM.
Even though horse slaughter was banned in the United States in 2006, thousands of horses are still crowded onto transports and hauled to Canada and Mexico each year to be slaughtered. In 2020, over 30,000 horses were transported across the border marked for slaughter. Already this year over 2,000 equines have made the journey.
It was nearly 10 PM when my friends sent me the video.
A registered Half-Arabian/Half-Trakehner mare. In a kill pen in Oklahoma.
I’ve pulled horses out of bad situations in the past. Cisco failed out of a western pleasure program for being ‘untrainable’…Sasha had been abandoned after her owner died…and Oz had been seized from his previous owner by Animal Control. All of them rehabbed into incredible horses with a little time and patience. But I hadn’t ever taken one out of a kill pen before. What the heck was I thinking?!
But she was gorgeous. Well built with incredible, dressage-y movement.
And she even had her papers in hand.
So just a few hours later, I became the (slightly insane) owner of a 15 year old mare that I knew nothing about. Was she halter broke? Trained to ride? Pregnant?! Guess I’d find out!
(Now is a good time to note that the topic of purchasing horses out of kill pens is a not a simple, straight forward one. It’s a complex situation with concerns about whether there’s any impact in the total number of animals shipped and the impact on pricing. Something I hope to discuss in a future blog post. But I needed a horse…and this one needed a home….)
With snow on the way, I knew she needed a place to settle in for a couple weeks before I could pick her up. Thankfully, the trainer at Blue Star Equestrian (who has tons of experience rehabbing kill pen horses for dressage) came to the rescue! He picked her up off the lot and gave her a warm, comfortable place to quarantine until the weather cleared.
I went to pick her up fully prepared for the worst—with drugs and extra help. But she jumped right on the trailer with barely a moment’s hesitation. What a relief!
She’s been home a week now.
Cleared her respiratory crud from the pens. And is figuring out her place with the boys. (Merlin’s not quite sure how he feels about the idea of sharing his pasture and barn with a newcomer…but Oz is more than happy to let her be in charge!)
She’s starting to let a little of her personality show…nickering at me as I do barn chores and even starting to perk her ears up at the sound of her new name. She tolerates her ulcer meds…and loves the breakfast, dinner, and snack menu. She no longer tenses and starts to breathe heavy when I put the halter on. And she’s decided it’s okay to be touched past her neck and shoulder.
Thankfully she’s halter broke, but we’ve had a refresher course and learned to trot nicely on the lead. She’s even willingly picked up all four feet.
I have a good feeling that she’s going to do just fine.
Welcome home, Kleio!
