The wife and I have three horses, all rescues from bad/abusive environments. Our little guy was only a couple of months old when we rescued him from slaughter. He was actually in line to get on the truck when he was saved. He was a "by product" of the horse racing industry, a foal of a brood mare. Brood mares exist to provide milk for young thoroughbred race horses, and in order to keep giving milk they are impregnated over and over and over. The foals are thrown away. They used to be simply dumped out back with the trash, but there are some controls over that now. Horse racing may seem glamorous, but behind the scenes, not so much.
That was four years ago, now he's a "teenager" and full of fire. He needs a job to do to keep from getting bored and destructive. He needs training and someone younger than us to ride him. Ride him a lot.
So with hearts that were sad, but full of joy for him at the same time, we gave him to a special rescue organization that takes great care in selecting potential forever homes. This place usually only takes in the worst of the worst abuse cases, but they made an exception for us, my wife has done volunteer work for them and we have donated money on occasion.
We know he's in good hands, and by giving him away we gave him a better future.
In a perfect world, he will be adopted by a teenage girl, who belongs to 4H or FFA, and will make him into a barrel racer.
A guy can dream, can't he?
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