And so it begins.

I'll start by apologizing for any lack of skill in my writing style. It's been, well um a while, since I've attempted to write anything other than emails. A worthy cause has come along to encourage me back into it so here I go.

I'll be honest up front. This is a shameless grab for attention with the intent of getting these horses a good hopefully forever home. It all started on Facebook. All kinds of old friends came crawling out of the woodwork. I don't like to toot my own horn (OK, maybe I do) but man, I always made friends with the coolest people!

Apparently one of these is now a commercial cargo pilot. She flew a couple of loads of Belgians to the meat market in Asia and was so moved that when she had the chance she rescued two of the mares. As is unfortunately all to common she didn't realize the magnitude of what she was getting into. She thought that they would be at least halter broke and for one of the mares it wasn't the case. Anyway, long story short, a year and a bunch of money later and both mares are really no further along then when she got them. One mare is completely unhandled, barring being chased down and haltered a couple of times. In hindsight she should never have been put in the pasture. Both mares were pregnant and Peace, the unhandled one lost her foal. She foaled in the pasture and they were unable to help her quickly enough when she ran in to difficulties.

So this is where I come into the story. The goal is to get the mares and the yearling filly re homed. I've always been interested in rescue. Mainly I'd thought about thoroughbred rescue and always wished I had the funds and time to rescue, train, and re home them. That's my Super Lotto dream. It seemed like serendipity. Finally a change to give. I explained my worry, that two well fed Belgian mares that are untrained are a kill buyers wet dream. I told her that if she gives them to someone who can't handle the responsibility or doesn't have the experience to turn them into good citizens. The may start the slide down the slippery slope to auction and even though selling to kill is illegal in California, all the out of state trailers at the low end auctions show that it is still rampant. So I volunteered.

I have time for the next few month so here we go. Departing on a journey into training the really big mares. Hopefully this hasn't been to unclear. I'll write more soon and get things up to the present. There have been a few trips and trainings to catch up on and I intend this to keep track of their progress.

(this feels so weird, like talking to myself in public)

Here are the pics that there rescuer sent me from last year.

Peace

And Rose and Sweetpea