Fawn and Rancho Bona Vita Home
The next home we leased together with the boys’ brother Element was a 30 acre place that had an old barn and an old ‘conversion’ house that used to be a diary barn. No one had lived there for ten years so the bears and other wildlife had pretty much moved in. After the critters initial shock they politely moved aside and eventually we all found peaceful coexistence. There was no fencing so we set up a temporary corral for Lady D next to the old barn while we went to work fixing the place up.
We were only there for a couple months when we got a phone call from a lady who heard through the grapevine we had relocated to land with good pasture – she had a crisis on her horse ranch and needed our help.
The lady explained that she had rescued a 17 year old Thoroughbred mare and currently had her in a dry lot with her other 15 horses. Apparently she was terribly thin and the other horses in her herd would not allow her to get enough hay during feedings – she was at the bottom of the pecking order. She said having good pasture for her would help her put on much needed weight and asked us if we would be willing to adopt her.
We went to visit her place and sure enough there she stood in that dry lot apart from the rest of the herd with her head down and staring vacantly. Our hearts broke at the sight of her condition. We will never forget the far away look in her eyes and how she seemed to have given up on life.
The lady who gave her to us gave us her ‘papers’ and apparently she was a retired race horse and had won some major races in the first part of her life. We learned that in that world when a mare wins then after the track they become broodmares whose foals fetch a high price. So she was forced to foal for the next 10 years which is a really sad situation because despite what people may believe we know horses get very attached to their foals and deeply bond with them. When those foals are force weaned and separated it does traumatize the mares and foals both. After she had served her ‘purpose’ as broodmare she was sold to the private equine world and her papers showed she had 15 different owners in a very short span of time to when she landed at the lady’s ranch. We made the choice on the spot and she arrived by trailer the next day.
Lady D was so excited to see another horse – their first meeting was a classic young filly meeting an experienced older mare and the relationship of mother daughter was born.
Because Lady D had been rejected by her own mother she didn’t know proper horse manners and every night we would hear screaming at the barn at dinner time as Fawn taught her what it means to be a horse. We witnessed a dramatic shift in Fawn’s behavior over the next 6 months as she regained her confidence and began her long road of healing.
We promised Fawn that she would never have to carry another human being on her back for the rest of her life and vowed that we would be her forever family. She quickly gained weight on the pasture and grain we gave her.
The 2008 financial crises effects were hitting folks hard during this time and the following year we got another phone call about 2 ponies that were in need of forever family as well – Read more here about our next leap of faith rescue of Leah and Sheba.