When I first moved into the Northport location in July of 2010 I felt like all my dreams were coming true. I had a huge barn, all my rescue horses in one place, and the rescue was growing larger then I ever expected. I guess you could say my favorite part was the huge barn, I had just five rescue horses and sixteen stalls. I imagined the faces of the horses that would soon fill them. I was dying to get out into the world and help horses in need. Then my phone rang...it was an older man who had a few thorougbred racehorses on lay up due to small injuries. Their owners no longer wanted them and had asked him to place them. I hopped into my car with two volunteers and drove right over, excited to see if I could help these magnificent animals.
When we got to the lay up farm we walked around and met the three horses that needed a place to go. Three horses, three girls looking at them, can you imagine what happened next? We all fell in love with a different horse and stood there trying to decide on one. One horse was a 16 hh dark bay with a slim body, he was a puppy dog, licked your hand and nickered when you walked away. The next was a light colored bay gelding that was muscular and gorgeous. The last horse we looked at was a 17 hh dark bay with a gorgeous head and body to match. I casually asked if the groom could jog him out for me and he looked some what concerned at my question. He slowly put the giant horses halter on, chain over the nose and coaxed him out of the stall. The big bay saw the door open and jetted out of the stall. The poor groom held on for dear life and got dragged around the small area attempting to make the horse jog. I yelled out that I would take him and my friends looked at me like I had lost my mind. Hey, he had spirit!
The horses were delivered the next morning (yes, all three of them), they were all slightly sedated so they could safely be unloaded and brought to stalls to settle in, I was told they had never been in turnout and could be difficult to handle so to be careful when dealing with them. I had gotten Sage right after he came from the track, how hard could this be!
One of my volunteers decided to put the calmest one in the herd out in a small pen so he could stretch. He walked up the hill (with a few hops and bucks) and walked through the gate to his paddock and walked around. Twenty minutes later he was sun bathing. This horse, now named Troy, quickly became the barn favorite.
I walked down the aisle of my new barn satisfied that I now had filled a few more stalls with horses that needed homes. I stopped at the stall of the massive throughbred and scratched his head, he really did not look too intimidating now that he was standing in my barn. I liked him, he was my type of horse, big and bay. I named him Moose and was excited to work with him. As I closed the doors that night I blew Moose a kiss and told him I had faith in him he would be an extraordinary horse.
The next morning I picked Cadie, our photographer, up on the way to the farm. We chatted about our new horses and were excited to get some new pictures of them. As we walked into the barn something felt off, the horses were all nervous and spinning in their stalls, I looked around and saw that Moose's door was wide open with no Moose inside, my stomach turned and Cadie and I made a plan to both check seperate sides of the property and meet back in the barn (hopefully leading Moose). I ran up the hill, checked the ring, behind the bushes, in the yard, and ran back to the barn. We had both come back empty handed. At this point I was in panic mode, the whole property has tall fencing around it, how had this horse gotten away! We went back and forth, should we call the police? call my mom? call SOMEONE?! Then it struck me, we had not checked the front paddock. We ran like hell and that's when we spotted him, he had jammed himself inbetween a wall and our manure dumpster. I spent the next 30 minutes backing this massive horse down a narrow walk way. He looked at me with a sorry look on his face, sorry that he nearly scared me half to death, how would I explain to everyone I lost a horse during my first week at my new barn?!
Moose came out of the mess with not a scratch on him, I walked him back to his stall and he casually ate hay like nothing had happend. I fixed the latch on his door and chatted with Cadie that the horses new name was "Moose on the Loose".
Moose turned out to be an amazing horse, he settled into his new life as a pet after finding out his racing injury was so severe he would never be ridden again. I taught him to walk with manners and he was soon being lead with just a cotton lead rope to and from his paddock. I guess you could call him a big dog now, he went from winning races to winning the hearts of every girl who walked into our barn.
Moose is still looking for his happily ever after as a companion or pet. Please consider giving this big guy a new home, you will not regret it!
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