4-12-09

The April euthanasia clinic needs your help. It is currently at $1,124 with a goal of $2,500. That leaves $1,376 that needs to be raised. With your help we can gift the last gift of love to horses in need.
This morning Jason and Tawnee, along with a bunch of volunteers, headed out to the auction.

At the auction they got a good look at the horses that were there. It's always so sad seeing so many horses that were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

This horse caught Tawnee's eye. She saw the poor skinny guy and she said "I bet that is an off the track Thoroughbred." She checked his lip and sure enough, there was a tattoo. He was in pain and was definitely preferring not to move. Probably from an old injury. Tawnee determined that he would be coming back to the rescue so they could give him the help he needs.

After the auction everyone went out to meet the lucky horses that had been saved in the sale ring.

This is one of the volunteers haltering one of the horses.

The horse that was being haltered above is an elderly Paso Fino that is in extreme pain and almost refuses to move it hurts so much. She has problems with both her front and her hind end. Poor girl!

The skinny TB was in our pen too after the auction. Poor guy, you know at one time he was a magnificent horse, out there running down the track, winning money for people no doubt. Now he is skinny and was just sold at the auction for whatever his previous owner could get for him. It's sad that so many horses are bred as if they are disposable.

This is the Paso again.

This is a Mustang gelding.

This Paint gelding was also rescued today.

There was a group of young wormy horses at the auction, this is one of them.

This big fat guy had a KB bidding on him furiously, so Tawnee kept bidding. Finally the KB knew he could not make any money on his flesh, and he quit raising the bid. He is a gorgeous boy, and we are thankful he will not be heading out to slaughter.

Another one of the younger wormy horses.

This is an Arab that is supposedly trained to ride. She seems very sweet but doesn't like to be away from her friends.

All of the horses we rescued today are halter trained, it was nice for a change. It sure makes loading a lot easier. Once all the horses were haltered they were taken down to the loading area.

It's always fun seeing the line of horses with volunteers beside them heading to the safe ride to the rescue.

Once they all made it to the loading area they stood waiting for their turn to load. Another volunteer comforted the Paso and assured her that everything would be ok.

One by one they were led to the trailer, and without incident they all hopped in one at a time.

And then it was the long trip back to the rescue. It was nice getting back before it was completely dark for once. Thanks to all the volunteers we were able to get the horses found, sorted, haltered and loaded up quicker than normally.

The horses arrived at the rescue. They all had eyes bulging, wondering what new adventure awaited them.

The trailer was backed up to the loading area. This is the first time it was used for unloading auction horses and it worked absolutely fabulously. All the horses unloaded safely and seemed quite comfortable in their new surroundings.

It was so nice having the holding pens to put the different horses in. No more backing up to the round pen to unload horses or leaving the horses there overnight. This is a great improvement to the rescue and we are so excited to have these new holding pens.

The tired horses were able to sit back, get a drink of clean water, eat yummy food, and unwind from the day.

As the sun was setting the days events were winding to a close.

We would like to take a minute to thank each of you that donated to make today's auction a reality. With your support these 8 horses were saved from an unknown fate. And a big Thank You goes to all the volunteers that came to the rescue to help out today. It was great having a good team of volunteers that pitched in and did what they could do to help. Thank you!

"Prince" is currently in the lead for the name for the cute little premature foal. We will leave the voting open until tomorrow, so if you haven't voted yet, click here. We are planning on visiting him tomorrow to see how he is doing.