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Small Victories |
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Inspired by the Garnet Rogers song of the same name, Small Victories is a rescue operation. As lovers of horses, it is unbearable for us to see them suffer.
To date, we have saved one horse and we hope that once our new live-out pastures are completed, that we can do more.
The story of Cash: In September 2005 several of our LETC team went off to the Ontario Livestock Exchange (OLEX) in Waterloo to look for a horse for one of our boarders. A nasty, noisy, smelly place, OLEX is an auction house where horses, cattle, sheep and other creatures are bought and sold—some for stock, some for pleasure, and some for less savory reasons.
Newbies in the ways of such auctions, the LETC team wandered stupefied above (there’s a catwalk) and through the horse pens, saddened by the terrible condition of so many … huge draft horses without flesh, lovely race horses whose health was fine but careers apparently over and their use to their owners therefore exhausted, blind ones, lame ones, terrified ones, and those that seemed to have just given up. We wanted to take them all home!
In one very crowded pen, smashed up against the bars, stood a young and very sad brown & white appaloosa gelding. His doleful eyes beseeched any/all to love him, yet he appeared to be lame in his left fore and he had clearly been starved—you could count his ribs from ten feet away (see arrival pictures below). His fate appeared to be the Meat Man, hereinafter to be called the Devil. Until he made eye contact and a connection with Shirley, that is.
Deciding that we could not let this poor young horse go to the Devil, we prepared to enter the auction itself. My goodness, they move quickly! It took us awhile to figure out how the bidding worked—some horses were being sold by the pound, and others “on the dollar” - and you had to be quick … the average time from start to finish seemed to be only a minute or two! Cash, as you have probably figured out, was to be sold by the pound. And us without our calculators! How much does $0.15/lb work out to for the whole horse ???
We won. We beat the Devil. For the whopping sum of just over a hundred dollars, the poor creature was ours. We named him Petty Cash, since that’s how he was paid for.
Turns out, Cash is a registered Appaloosa by the name of Dykx Rock Star, and he has a pretty impressive family tree.
Also turns out he wasn’t lame at all … he just had a couple of enormous stones in his feet!
Over the last 3+ years, Cash has put on weight and settled well into LETC life. He began training last year and WON his class in his first-ever competition in 2008. He has lovely movement, a willing and calm personality (totally bombproof!) and with those long legs will make an excellent horse for the right rider in any discipline.
UPDATE: Cash was sold last year and he and his new owner are doing really well!
Oh, and donations to Small Victories are happily accepted. All proceeds will go directly to the acquisition and care of additional “saves”.
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London Equestrian & Training Centre |
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Where Horses Come First |
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(519) 472-3280 |
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Cash on Arrival (note the ribs) |
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Cash on Arrival (hard to see but the hips are convex) |
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Cash 1yr later!! |
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Cash May07 (18mos later) |