Meet Red

Red

Arrived 11th September 2017
Passed 6th December 2017

With the end of a tough year upon us comes the end of another worthy and beautiful, elder equine life. Thirty-three year-old ‘RED’ who arrived just a few months ago along with his lovely female companion horse, Lilly. He is in beautiful condition for his age saying to all that his previous owners cared for him very well.

As many of our supporters and followers know, our mission is a noble yet challenging one as we cater to the aged equine population when space is available to offer refuge. Because we only had the privilege of Red’s presence for only two months and 27 days makes it even more difficult to talk about it.

It was noticed after about three weeks his great body shape commenced to deteriorate and it was first thought the cause of this was his moving to a new home and joining up with a new herd. This no doubt did contribute some but it was then realized he was under nourished.

After the equine dentist examined and treated his teeth it became obvious that his mouth could not handle the harsh ground cover while grazing. His teeth condition also contributed to Red taking longer when eating his hard meal then and his stable mate would take over. Regretfully this went unnoticed by us.

Even though we increased his hard meal to three per day it did not seem to help him regain his strength and vigor.

To add to this beautiful horses woes his hind legs commenced to swell and became quite painful, even with pain relief given and treatment nothing improved in fact some days even with his gate open he would stand in his stable the complete day.

I found him down one afternoon and even when we gently tried to get him up he would not stand, even when the remainder of the herd raced up to see what was going on he hardly moved. At this time I was convinced that this dear horse was saying “I have had enough”. So once again I had the stressful sad duty to carry out and that was to put to put him to sleep with my own hand.

Every time I have had to do this it seems to bruise my heart and the impact never fades.

This majestic horse was a wonderful soft obliging horse, he would always be so willing to cooperate in what ever we asked of him.

On the first paragraph of our web site we mention that the sanctuary follows the great natural horseman Carlos Tabernaberri in every detail when caring for a horse. The formula is C.C.K.L which means confident-consistant-kind-leadership and the horse with time will return to the handler T.O.R which means trust-obedience-respect. WELL RED DID NOT NEED ANY TIME -IT WAS INSTANT……..He was certainly special.

We have never met a horse we felt didn’t deserve the highest regard and care which we gladly and freely give. That said, Red was a model horse and I wish I could have done and given more. He left his mark and we miss him and thank him for his time here as short as it was. Just like the other elder horses that have passed on we will remember his dignified, graceful presence now and forever imprinted on our hearts and land.