Horse Rescue Success Stories

At Dead Broke Farm, we love horses, and we find it difficult to turn our backs on horses who are malnourished, injured, unwanted, abused, slaughter-bound, or in need of basic hoof or veterinary care. As a result, we have rescued more than 50 horses since 2004. We have nursed them back to health, rebuilt their trust in humans, and given them a purpose in life... to delight all those who come in contact with them. These horses are an inspiration to everyone they encounter, so we'd like to share some of their stories with you.

"Lilly"

Princess Is A Mustang Who Was Taken From Her Wild Herd

Princess is a mustang who was rounded up and sold by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). She was separated from her family and removed from the only life she'd ever known. She ended up in the hands of a horse trader that bred her, but neglected to feed her sufficiently or de-worm her. She had her foal and continued to lose even more weight while nursing her newborn filly. When we bought her (for ten times the price that they can be purchased from the BLM), she was very thin, nervous, and distrustful of humans. She had not only been neglected but abused as well. We fattened her up, won her trust, trained her to ride under saddle, and now she is one of the children’s favorite horses because she is so stunningly beautiful and gentle.

Princess When We Got Her                      Princess Today

Booger Was A Starving Orphan

Booger is another one of our rescue horses. He's the little one on the left in the photo below. He's the same age as the foal beside him, but he should be much bigger than the other foal because Booger is a big draft breed, while the other foal is a normal size breed. Booger had been with us for about 3 months when this picture was taken, so you can only imagine how emaciated he was when we first got him. We purchased Booger off of an online horse auction site. He was pitiful with a huge belly and hocks (the knees of his hind legs) that touched because he was so thin. He was being sold “as is”. He was a five-month-old orphan who was being kept in a tool shed! We drove to Maryland to pick him up, and learned that he also had infection in his muzzle. The vet came to examine him the following day and told us to prepare ourselves in case he didn’t survive. She gave him a body condition score of a “one” on a scale of 1 to 9 with 1 being a horse on the brink of starvation and a 9 being obese. His belly was bloated from worms, he had infection in his face, his muzzle and jaw was disfigured from over-calcification due to him eating whatever dog food he could scrounge up off the floor of the tool shed, and the insides of his hind legs were raw as a result of his legs rubbing together when he walked, because he had no muscle or fat to make his legs position themselves normally. It took more than a year for Booger to look like a horse rather than a camel, but after another two years, he began to actually grow. He now stands 16 hands and weighs about 1,600 lbs. Booger’s growth was stunted, so he will probably never reach his full potential to be a 17 hand, 2000 lb Belgian draft horse, but he’s still very beautiful and dear to us. We named him Booger because he was so pitiful looking. We unconsciously kept calling him “our little Booger”, and the name stuck. Many people, including the children who attend our riding camp, now enjoy Booger. He’s very gentle and loving, and he deserved much better care than he received as a baby.

Patches Was A Victim Of Divorce

He was a young two year-old foal left to languish in a pasture with very little grass. He had a leg injury in his left hind hock that was swollen to three times the size of his right one. It had fluid on the joint and was feverish due to the internal infection. We had the vet examine him, and we purchased him knowing that we were facing a $1,000 vet bill the first week, and that he might not survive due to his weakened condition and the damage that the starvation may have already caused to his liver. But Patches was a fighter, and he pulled through after a few scary incident with colic caused by the medication prescribed to help fight the inflammation in his leg. Luckily, there was only minor damage to the cartilage in his left hock, and he is sound today. We started him under saddle, and he now enjoys taking adults and children alike on trail rides at our farm.

Bo Was Bound For Slaughter

Bo was our first rescue horse. Bo was 5 ½ months old when we bought him from a Pregnant Mare Urine (PMU) farm in Canada. The PMU industry purchases the urine from pregnant mares to make a hormone replacement therapy for women going through menopause. The mares live out their entire pregnancy in slip stalls so small the horses can’t lie down or turn around. The foals are unwanted by-products that have to be dealt with. Many foals don’t survive the unsupervised birthing process or are destroyed by the farmers because they are unwanted and costly to raise. Those who do survive are weaned from their mother’s milk at just three months to bring the mares back into season sooner. Babies may not survive because they don’t get teeth for grazing until they are five months old, which is why they are normally left with their mothers until they are 6 months old. The foals who live are usually sent to feed lots where they are fattened up, and when they reach 700 lbs or 1 year of age, they are sold to slaughterhouses where they are packaged for human consumption in countries like Japan, China, Europe, and Germany where horseflesh is considered a delicacy. Bo was one of the foals fortunate enough to be purchased by the Foal plugins/editors/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js" type="text/javascript"> Ad option Network, Inc. (FANI) and put up for adoption. (For more information on what FANI does, visit FANI's website.) After a being prescreened and approved as an acceptable owner, we purchased Bo from FANI for the price that the meat packers would have paid plus shipping from Canada ($850 in total). We drove to New York to pick him up from a foster farm where he had stayed until being adopted. Bo, like all the other PMU foals, had never been handled, so he was wild and fearful of humans. Today, Bo is healthy and happy where he delights riders with his mischievous antics on the trail. Bo is a 17.5 hand black Percheron weighing nearly 2,000 lbs. He serves an important role at our farm because he is one of twelve draft horses capable of carrying riders up to 450 lbs, so that we never have to turn anyone away or insult them by asking them their weight in public.

Gaitor's Racing Career Ended

When race horses' careers come to an end at the "ripe old age" of four, they are often sold to kill buyers who ship them to Canada or Mexico to be slaughtered and processed for human consumption. Even though Americans don't eat horse meat, it is a considered to be a delicacy in other countries such as Japan and Europe. So a disproportionate number of Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds (who pull the sulkies) are slaughtered each year even though they are healthy in every respect. Gaitor is a Thoroughbred we got through Horse Rescue United (HRU) along with another Thoroughbred named Valentine and a Standardbred named Tommy. HRU is a horse rescue organization committed to saving the lives of former race horses and other slaughter-bound horses.

Destiny Needed Surgery

We bought Destiny from a horse auction in Oxford, NC. She was suffering from a hernia where her umbilical cord had been. Destiny was already a year old, and the surgery should've already been done. We bought her for a pittance, brought her home, and had the vet perform the surgery. She's 4 years old now, broke to ride, and "healthy as a horse."

"Destiny"

Horses Who Were Saved From Slaughter

1. Abby
2. Billy
3. Bo
4. Bubbles
5. Charlotte
6. Diabalo
7. Dixie
8. Gaitor
9. Gypsy
10. Fergie
11. Jazzy
12. Kate
13. Lucky
14. Maggie
15. Tommy
16. Thunder
17. Valentine
18. Duchess
19. Elliott

"Kate"

I cry every time I see this slaughter footage, and I think you will too, but it's the ugly fact that it will be the fate of more than 100,000 American horses each year that motivates me to save every horse I can from such a despicable end.

Horses We Rescued From Starvation

1. Amoretto
2. Barbie
3. Booger
4. Delilah
5. Granny
6. Gretchen
7. Gus
8. Lilly
9. Moonshine
10. Patience
11. Princess
12. Sassy
13. Trigger

"Trigger"

Horses Who Were Relinquished By Their Owners

1. Cindy
2. Cipriana
3. Jack
4. Jericho
5. Keeper
6. Lexi
7. Little Man
8. Nellie
9. Sadie
10. Sam
11. Samantha
12. Skeeter
13. Shiloh

"Sam"

Injured/Sick Horses Who Needed Vet Care

1. Destiny
2. Dolly
3. Freckles
4. Mae
5. Patches
6. Tiny

"Tiny Before Eye Surgery"

Come Meet Our Rescue Horses

We'll be happy to show you these wonderful horses, tell you their stories, and allow you to ride them when you visit our farm. So come on out and experience these awesome horses. Participate in our volunteer program or make a reservation for the horseback riding adventure of a lifetime!

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