Phase 2: Past and Present

So, after we arrived at my property, I parked my little two horse trailer up next to the barn and came around the back to back out our new guest. The mare was pawing at the trailer floor impatiently but not too frantically, the poor girl is probably sick of trailers by now with being relocated from her original home and then being transferred to who knows how many holding facilities and barns…

My farrier, Greg, was nice enough to agree to come over and look her over since she has a history of hoof ailments due to her previous living situation and was already waiting in the barn for us with his tools. Greg always reminds me of an old cowboy with his tall, grisled appearance and mannerisms. He’s just a big ol’ grump with a gentle heart and always a kind, but firm, hand with the horses. He’s especially taken a shine to one of my stallions, Dirty, and when we do any kind of event on my property you can pretty much always expect that old cowboy to tack Dirty up and ride along.

The new mare, whom I still need to come up with a name for, seems to have great manners for a horse that had been basically rotting in a field for the past few years. After Greg took a look at her he pointed out a couple areas of her hooves where he could see an issue and said he had a couple techniques that should resolve her issues. He then trimmed her hooves and said he’d prefer to leave her shoeless until he was done fixing her issues and then we could talk about shoes depending on what direction I was going to go with her. But I just have to say, she is a saint with the farrier! Just like the rescue facility said, she was perfectly behaved and was even affectionate towards Greg while he was working on her.

After I got her settled in in her stall, I went into my office and poured over her file. So like I had read earlier, she had been seized from an abandoned and flooded field along with two other horses after her owner had passed away. Other than that there wasn’t a lot of information. At the bottom of the file they did have an address and signature for a Mollie O’Connor, said to be the person that signed over ownership of the horses. I thought that was strange since the owner was supposedly deceased so I decided to snoop and check out this person on Facebook…

Turns out Mollie is the late owner’s 18 year old great-granddaughter. I hated doing it because I’m sure it would be a sensitive subject but I ended up reaching out to her on Facebook and sent her my number and asked her to call me about her great-grandfather’s horses. She did end up calling me surprisingly! Apparently after her great-grandfather passed, Her uncle had been the one taking care of the estate and was the one in charge of rehoming his horses and dogs as well as the property. Her great-grandfather was not a very organized man and all of his documents were scattered everywhere. Her uncle had no idea there were these three horses in the far back field of the property, the uncle didn’t even know that was a field belonging to the property! 

Mollie had gone to the property a couple years after he had passed, she had inherited a few of his dogs and was looking for their registration paperwork, when she had come across paperwork regarding the purchase of the backfield, her great-grandfather was going to use it for his broodmares. She also found three Loshenka registration documents tucked into the same folder and she knew by the descriptions that these three were not in his will nor were they any of the horses her uncle had rehomed. It looked like these might’ve been the last horses he had purchased/bred. According to the documents at the time her great-grandfather wrote them these horses were a broodmare, her young filly that had been born on the property, and then a two-year old filly that he was preparing to sell that was the half sibling to the younger filly. Mollie thought this was all odd and ended up going out to the backfield and checking it out and she was the one who found these poor abandoned horses years after their owner had passed and she was the one who had called for help… She said all three were extremely frightened and in pretty bad condition and they would not leave each other's sides when the rescuers came… She said they literally had to drag them apart to place them in the trailers and they sadly all got placed at different facilities…

According to Mollie, it looks like I have the youngest of the three who should now be about three years old. So she was abandoned most of her life by people and then when the people finally came they tore her away from her mom and half-sibling… It’s amazing she is as well-behaved on the ground as she is… Poor baby. I was very happy to have all of this information though and I knew it would help!

After getting off the phone with Mollie I immediately got up and went to see my new friend. I haltered her and groomed her in the barn and then led her out into the yard. She hesitated at first but then agreed to come with me. I walked her out into the side pasture and turned her out and the mare almost instantly started to get nervous and started pacing and pawing at the gate, the same behavior I witnessed at the holding facility. I left her there and hurried back into the barn and decided to grab Copper. Copper was my makeover horse from last year and is the most vibrant ginger-colored overo mare with beautiful flashy markings and one blue eye. Copper is a very levelheaded and gentle mare so I thought she’d be perfect. As soon as I walked into the new mare’s view with Copper walking beside me the new mare froze and started snorting, trying to smell Copper. She even let out a small nicker. Poor girl just needs a friend. Copper raised her golden head to look at the new girl and nickered back. I turned Copper out with the new mare. They instantly got along and were nuzzling each other like old friends. The new mare was finally calming down and began grazing next to Copper. I sighed a breath of relief as I watched the two mares relax. I turned and returned to the barn and began getting my equipment ready for tomorrow. I’ll take the girls back into the barn later and then tomorrow we are going to start on groundwork and hopefully start gentling her to ride! She needs a name!!!