Once upon a time, there was a beautiful horse farm, unlike any other up here in hillbilly heaven. The owners of the farm were not happy people and one day decided to sell the farm. When the farm was sold the people packed up and left, leaving behind several of their “beloved” horses. The new farm owners had sixty seven of their own horses and did not want the throwaways from the previous people. The new owners made it clear to the locals that they were going to send the horses to auction.
In steps a wonderful woman with a huge heart that lived down the road from the farm. We’ll call her Jane. Jane and her husband took truck and trailer and picked up several of the auction-bound horses that would get on the trailer. Two horses were very old (Ginger and Snow), which is probably why they were left behind by their owners. The third was Misfire.
Misfire is a 12 year old Quarterhorse mare who has supposedly been there, done that, including parades. She’s chestnut with a big blaze, and she’s built like a tank – which makes getting her on a trailer all the more fun! They couldn’t get her on the trailer and had lots of big macho know-it-all redneck help. Poor Misfire ended up walking away from the trailer limping and bleeding from all the manhandling she’d received. Jane finally decided that Misfire was going home with her one way or the other, so she walked the horse four miles down a busy road to get her home.
Jane also took in other horses that were tossed aside by friends and neighbors and eventually ended up with seven horses, one Shetland stallion, and one miniature horse. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any horse experience or knowledge and couldn’t find any one to help. She realized she was in over her head and made some inquiries at the local feed store… which led her to me.
To make a long trailer loading story short, we got Misfire on the trailer in a little over two hours with very little bloodshed and no lameness. She rubbed some hair off on one back foot, but that’s about it. Thanks to Doc being there and ready with the happy juice cocktail, it went quite swimmingly and much better than we could have hoped. She rode well, just standing in the back of the stock trailer looking out, then didn’t want to get off the trailer when she got here. She was content to stand in the trailer and take in the scenery and other horses.
The pictures I took tonight didn’t turn out very well since it was almost dark, so these were pictures that I took at their previous home. This is Misfire (on the right) and her mother, Ginger. Ginger got her teeth floated by Doc on Monday and he also found a bad heart murmur. She’s in her mid-20’s and is staying at her current home because there’s a little 4 year red head who would be heart broken if she left. Hopefully, she’ll start putting on weight now that her teeth are done.
Once we got Misfire into the back pasture we left to go pick up another three (who all loaded very well). Originally, we weren’t going to pick up the mini yet, as she’s difficult to catch, but we had a stroke of luck and we got her on the trailer as well. Mini Pearl already has an adoptive home waiting for her as a companion to another mini. Isn’t she just ADORABLE???
Prince is a Morgan cross, they think. He’s about 8 years old, rideable, but still green and herd bound. He fancies himself a real ladies’ man and keeps his mares in line just like Junior does for the big herd.
Abbi Road is a 5 year old Paint. Her and her registered full sister, Genesis, both came from a paint breeder down the road from us. This breeder has two very comformationally fugly paint stallions that she breeds to anything with four legs. Neither stallion is broke to ride and neither of them have ever left her farm to do anything useful. She has 20 or 30 horses on her place now and just keeps pumping more foals out every year. Unfortunately, she felt the need to breed Abbi when the poor girl was only three years old. The colt was still nursing and hadn’t been gelded yet when we picked them up yesterday. He’ll be coming here once he’s gelded.
Abbi was sent to a trainer for 30 days, but rather than being broke to ride, she was simply broken. She left Jane a friendly, personable mare, but came back afraid, skittish, and sporting war wounds from her battles with cruel training devices.
Abbi’s sister, Genesis, was one month old when her mother died. She’s four now and her growth may have been stunted a bit, but she’s a friendly horse that loves attention and follows you around like a puppy.
That’s the gang so far. Everyone needs their feet trimmed BADLY and we’ll be conquering that tonight and tomorrow night. I’ll give them until this weekend to settle in, then I’ll get on Misfire and Prince this weekend to see what we’ve got. I’d like to see more weight on the two paint mares before I start their training, but now that they’ve been wormed and Abbi no longer has a yearling sucking on her, it shouldn’t take long for them to become fat and sassy.
Here’s to hoping all of these horses get a happy ever after ending to their stories!
