Almost nineteen years ago I rescued a foal from Alberta. It was around this time of year that I learned about the situation of the PMU foals and the excess foals that were sold for meat after all the others had found homes with ranchers or as riding horses. There was such a demand for the premarin that many foals were born that could never hope to find good homes being useful horses.
I had recently sold my mare and started looking over the page after page of babies in grassy fields with their mothers and herd mates. There were so many...some were gorgeous and other not so but they were all for sale. I became involved with a group out in Olds who had gone to the sales the previous 2 years and bought foals to order for other people in the US and Canada. The point of this was not to outbid the ranchers bidding on well bred stock for their farms but to wait till the crowds thinned and the only ones left bidding were the feedlot dealer who would eventually sell them off for slaughter. Then this group would pick up the foals that people had ordered.
So my order was for a solid color foal that looked more like an English type of horse. I didn't really want a draft cross or a mostly white foal...although it was usually the solid colour foals were left over. The fancy colors were chosen first. So I got Riva. She was a breeding stock paint solid black except for a star on her forehead.
Our foals arrived at the end of September and that was the first time I had seen her except for in pictures.
So now 19 years later I can look back on all he fun we have had together. I discovered Parelli Natural Horsemanship when I was looking for things to do with a young at this point unrideable horse. We started going to clinics and after she got over her nerves at the first one we were on our way to achieving our goal to get our red string, then the blue and eventually the green one. Riva has been a wonderful horse with a great horsenality and has taught me so much horsemanship and patience. She is my forever horse and we won't part ways till the end. I am still learning from her. I am learning now to enjoy her company without expectations of activities. We still work on some things at liberty and improve on them. We did a ground work clinic last spring and she was wonderful. She gets the occasional ride and assists me with lessons with Arwen and now Tucker. She helps new students get the idea of what to do with the rope ad how to correctly ask for something. We are still having some fun after all this time. Hope that we get lots more opportunities to hang out together. So my rescue has been a success although there has been a downside in that she has had a lot of lameness issues in her life but you do get the good and bad together.
I had recently sold my mare and started looking over the page after page of babies in grassy fields with their mothers and herd mates. There were so many...some were gorgeous and other not so but they were all for sale. I became involved with a group out in Olds who had gone to the sales the previous 2 years and bought foals to order for other people in the US and Canada. The point of this was not to outbid the ranchers bidding on well bred stock for their farms but to wait till the crowds thinned and the only ones left bidding were the feedlot dealer who would eventually sell them off for slaughter. Then this group would pick up the foals that people had ordered.
So my order was for a solid color foal that looked more like an English type of horse. I didn't really want a draft cross or a mostly white foal...although it was usually the solid colour foals were left over. The fancy colors were chosen first. So I got Riva. She was a breeding stock paint solid black except for a star on her forehead.
Our foals arrived at the end of September and that was the first time I had seen her except for in pictures.
So now 19 years later I can look back on all he fun we have had together. I discovered Parelli Natural Horsemanship when I was looking for things to do with a young at this point unrideable horse. We started going to clinics and after she got over her nerves at the first one we were on our way to achieving our goal to get our red string, then the blue and eventually the green one. Riva has been a wonderful horse with a great horsenality and has taught me so much horsemanship and patience. She is my forever horse and we won't part ways till the end. I am still learning from her. I am learning now to enjoy her company without expectations of activities. We still work on some things at liberty and improve on them. We did a ground work clinic last spring and she was wonderful. She gets the occasional ride and assists me with lessons with Arwen and now Tucker. She helps new students get the idea of what to do with the rope ad how to correctly ask for something. We are still having some fun after all this time. Hope that we get lots more opportunities to hang out together. So my rescue has been a success although there has been a downside in that she has had a lot of lameness issues in her life but you do get the good and bad together.
