May 11, 2012

Bryan Starts His New Life



My projects are horses that have been ridden and treated badly. Note: I do not say ‘abused’. Because though they have been, it has not been in the typical way that people consider ‘abuse’. They’ve not been starved, or whipped, or bled, or tied in chains. They’ve often been dearly loved, well fed, and groomed and shown with pride. But they have been deeply harmed indeed, and it’s been under the guise of ‘training’. They are sore and lame. But worse, since many soreness and lameness problems are fixable with time and the right therapies, is how out of touch with their bodies they are, and how meaningless the ‘aids’ have become to them. They are either over reactive, like Bryan, or non reactive, like Philip, a Selle-Francais gelding that we got at the same time we got The B. And so the rehab process starts with making them aware that their lives with humans now will have cause and effect. They will have choices now that are clear and that will make sense to them.