New horses

This week has been a very busy one for us! Just want to say a quick congrats to Joey on her adoption of Charlotte and Suzie, Gaile on her adoption of Sprite and Lincoln. We are thrilled that so many of our horses are finding wonderful homes.

All of our other horses are doing well. Halia, Pandora, Amico, and Storm are now on our farm and are ready to find their forever homes. They are a great group of horses so we hope they can find homes over the summer.

It came to our attention that a fellow rescue will be closing their doors. We will be taking in 6 horses from this rescue to place into new homes. Donations are needed to help cover their hay and grain. This was unexpected for us so any help is greatly appreciated. You can donate right now via paypal.com. Just go on that site and you can make a donation right from your credit card. Our paypal address is projectsagehorserescue@gmail.com. These horses will all be looking for homes so please keep checking the site for updates.

Today we ventured to PA to pick up two TB geldings that needed a safe haven. They are both chestnuts, very sweet, both 7 years old. If anyone is in the market for a show prospect these are both nice horses. We will get them listed on the horses page ASAP!

We were also able to stop at New Holland horse auction today. We rescued a large Belgian that already has a home waiting for her on LI. We were also able to rescue 2 TB mares that I suspect were brood mares. They both have tons of cuts and scrapes and are in PA for some rehab and quarantine. It was a long day, watched tons of horses ship to slaughter, it's something that you can't get used to, watching healthy horses getting on trucks destined for a cruel ending.

So as you can tell we have been very busy, tons of horses coming in that will need new homes so please take a moment and cross post the horses we have for adoption. You could be part of giving a horse a happy ending. If you have a few spare bucks please consider donating, it will help us continue to help horses from bad situations and auction houses.

Hope everyone is staying cool, remember to hose your horses! :)

Thanks to Melissa for letting me update my blog from her iPad!!!

The Reunion of Rosie and Maggie

This past Saturday myself, my mom, Melissa, and Cadie packed into the truck and heading to PA to visit Kim and all of our horses that call Serendipity Stables home.  Our quaratine farm is a wonderful place, fields of horses grazing happily together.  We board many of our horses at this farm until we have space at our farm in Northport.  Kim rehabs them and teaches them the love and trust they will need to find a new home.  The teamwork that goes into rescuing our horses is endless, our goal as a group is to make the horses as adoptable as possible.  This visit was special for everyone, the reunion of Rosie and Maggie was finally here.

Let me begin by explaining to you to story of the draft team that I spent endless nights thinking about.  On President's Day we headed to New Holland Horse Auction to rescue a few special horses.  I stumbled across a big bay draft mare who I was very fond of.  When she went through the ring we decided to bid on her and rescue her from a life of working on an Amish farm and most likely end up at a slaughter house.  At the end of the day we noticed that our bay draft mare had an identical twin standing right next to her.  She was sold to someone else and as hard as I tried to track down who had purchased her I failed.  We loaded our bay draft, now named Rosie, on our trailer and has to listen to her and her friend scream frantically back and forth to one another.  The screams were piercing, it was the sound of heart break, two best friends saying good bye.

I did not sleep for days thinking about how I had let Rosie's friend down, I could not help her in her time of need.  It killed me inside.  I started a mission to find Rosie's mate, a mission that would take me months and tons of dead ends to find the other big bay mare.  We put out a reward and the tips starting flooding in, none of them brought me closer to reuniting her.  The months passed by and the search for Rosie's mate started to slow down.  We all assumed we would never find her.

In May we got a tip from someone at Camelot that she was run through and sold to the "10 pen".  We quickly called and bought the horse that was thought to be Rosie's mate.  I waited for the picture to see if it was her, when it popped up on my phone I was speechless.  We had found Rosie's mate.  She looked to be in great condition and I started planning the reunion.  Rosie and her mate would be reunited at Kim's and would find their forever home together.

This past Saturday we headed to Kim's to reunite Rosie and her mate, now named Maggie.  Ray walked Maggie up to the field that Rosie was grazing in, she took one look at Rosie, gave a loud nicker, and went trotting off to her old friend.  They danced in a circle figuring out their dominance and then started happily grazing together.  The crowd of people that came to watch these old best friends be reunited was amazing, everyone smiled and cheered as they happily went off together trotting around.  My hard work, and the hard work of many others, had finally paid off.  The girls will be together forever thanks to the dedication of many people that helped make this happen.

Each day we fight to rescue horses like Rosie and Maggie and reunions like this make it all worth while.

Check out the video of the reunion made by Cadie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3nqzJp8gZk&feature=youtu.be

In his honor...

A full day has passed and the realisation that Tucker is gone is setting in.  I stayed late at the farm last night, dreading having to leave without a soft kiss goodbye to him.  I accidentally made his food bucket this morning and caught myself putting his supplements over his hay cubes.  Time is the only thing that I know can heal a broken heart.  I miss you Tucker, more then you will ever know. 

Thank you to everyone that has sent cards and flowers, I truly appreciate your kindness in this difficult time. 

In honor of Tucker we will be heading to Sugarcreek Horse Auction in Ohio to rescue four horses in his memory in August.  I have never been to this auction before but from doing my research online and speaking with other people who attended it sounds awful.  The horses are all run through loose and 95% percent of them are sold to slaughter.  They are packed in pens so tight they hardly can move.  It is hell on earth for a horse and we plan on changing the life's on four horses from this terrible place in honor of Tucker.

This is where you come in, consider making a donation to help support our trip to Sugarcreek.  Whether it's $1, $5, or $10 it will help us reach our goal to rescue four horses.  You can make a donation via paypal.  Our paypal address is projectsagehorserescue@gmail.com.  Please earmark your donation for the Sugarcreek save in honor of Tucker.  In Project Sage fashion the way we rememeber the ones we have lost is by rescuing in their memory.  Help us remember Tucker, a horse that touched the life's of hundreds of people over his 33 years of life. 

You can also donate via snail mail to:
Project Sage Horse Rescue
63 S. Waldinger St.
Valley Stream, NY, 11580

We have not set a date for our trip yet but it will be in the middle of August.  I will post a date as soon as I have it.  Please make a donation so we can get to this auction and do what we do best, rescue.

Mourning the loss of a loved one

Today the Project Sage family mourns the loss of a great horse, a horse that has been part of my life for many years, Tucker.  At the age of 33 year old Tucker left us for greener pastures.  It's with a heavy heart that I share the story of this special horse....

  When I was just 7 years old I was taking english riding lessons once a week, I was slowly learning to ride and I could walk and trot on my own.  On a special day in the spring I was excited to learn that I would be riding a horse named Tucker in my weekly riding lesson.  He was a tall thoroughbred, who was feisty to say the least.  He trotted in place as I struggled to tack him up on crossties.  He lifted his head high in the air as I tried to bridle him.  My hands were shaking as I walked him into the ring with him prancing at my side.  I was nervous but excited to ride this high spirited horse.  I walked and trotted around the ring in harmony with him, my riding instructor commented on how quiet he was with me.  We trotted poles on the ground and did figure eights.  I felt like a million bucks that I was riding an "advanced" horse as they called him.  My instructor asked me if I wanted to canter and I nodded with excitement.  I asked for the canter and we took off in perfect harmony around the ring.  His canter was as smooth as anything, to this day I have not ridden a horse and felt as good as I did in that moment.  He was the first horse I ever cantered.  I took my weekly lessons on him and learned how to ride on this special horse.

Years later I got my first horse, Sage, but I still groomed Tucker and spent time with him as he was aging.  He worked hard in lessons and taught many kids how to canter just as he had taught me.  He was a special horse to me and I gave him carrots and turned him out with Sage whenever I could.  We offered to buy him from the schooling barn but they refused, he was a good school horse and they would keep working him.

We soon moved onto a bigger barn were I began to compete and ride with a more advanced trainer.  I still visited Tucker and brought him carrots, which were always his favorite.  But, after some years he was sold to another schooling barn.  I kept tabs on him and tried to buy him several times to no avail.  I visited him at the new barn that he was at and promised him when the time came he would be mine.  He was passed around to a few other barns and I always was able to keep track of him even if it took my several weeks to figure out which facility he was at.

The years kept passing and I lost Sage to a case of colic.  I began my horse rescue soon after to remember him and keep his legacy and name alive.  After Sage passed away I moved my other horse to a new barn with a huge grass field for her to be in, we were both grieving the loss of Sage and welcoming an unbroke two year old arabian into our lifes.  One day as I rode around the field on my mare I was looking at the horses in paddocks behind my field.  There he was, staring at me, looking better then he had in quite sometime.  I called out to him and his devil ears perked right up.  Again I had found Tucker, he was at a nicer barn this time and looked well taken care of.  I kept an eye on him for well over a year until one day he was gone, he was sold to a huge barn on Long Island, a place that was well known for running horses into the ground and dumping them at the auction.

At his point Tucker was over 30 and now I was determined to get him.  At this point in my life I was moving into Ketcham Farm, expanding my rescue bigger then I ever thought it would ever be.  We moved several of my rescue horses into our new farm and I imagined which stall I would keep for Tucker.  I bedded it down, hung new buckets, and got in my car to go find him.  I had spoken to a worker at the barn he was at and she said I was welcome to come visit him.  When I got there I was shocked at his condition, his feet had not been done in months, he was skin and bones, and his head hung so low it touched the ground.  They were planning on using him in their camp over the summer, at the age of 32 they still expected him to work.  With tears running down my face I pet him and told him it would be OK.  The barn worker explained that they were either going to use him in camp or send him to auction.  I offered to buy him and the barn owner explained that she wanted $1000.00 for him.  I told her I would be back with my truck and trailer to pick him up. 

My mom wrote a check out and we ventured to pick Tucker up.  It took two trips to get him on the trailer and countless hours.  He was so old he struggled to get up the ramp.  Eventually he was on his own to our new farm to live out his life in peace. 

Many people who visited our rescue farm in the summer of 2010 can remember Tucker walking around the farm, grazing and wandering.  I spent hours grooming him and savoring our time together.  He would lay in the grass and sun bathe for hours.  He gained weight and started to look a lot better, he started to trot around and get more spring in his step.  I eventually had to start putting him in a paddock after he dug through every ones lunches and bags searching for carrots.  He was the light of my life and I had not been so attached to a horse since Sage, our bond was deeper then I had ever felt for a horse.  Every night before I left to head home I would give him a kiss on his velvet nose and give him a carrot.  I taught him how to "give a kiss" and he soon gave them every night after his carrot.

I knew in my heart my time with him was limited and yesterday I had to say good bye.  I've become hardened to many things in life after going to the horse auctions and seeing abuse and neglect but yesterday I lay on the ground, sobbing, saying good bye to my best friend.  I will be forever grateful that I was able to give him time to be a horse and enjoy life and know love and scratches.  He will forever be in my heart and soul.  Good bye my Tucker, I'm glad I was able to give you this last year, I will forever remember our time together, you are a special horse, enjoy the green pasture in heaven, you deserve them.

May angels lead you in. . .