Horses have been critical to mankind’s survival and economic progress for thousands of years. But those life-sustaining human needs have long been fulfilled by other means, steadily eroding the horse’s traditional roles over the past 100 years. Though horses are still ridden, raced, jumped and worked on ranches, we don’t need them in the quantities once so essential to our survival. The result is a horse’s age, physical condition and specialized skills determine whether they are valued and treated humanely, or sent to slaughter plants in Mexico and Canada at the rate of 100,000+ annually. Many horse owners use these noble, sentient and magnificent creatures while they are perceived to have valuable skills, and then discard them with callous indifference when their age, health or skills decline. Tragically, they can’t feed themselves, so starvation is the fate of thousands of innocent horses every year. Our individual compassion and societal moral code must be better than that.
The following short stories are a small sampling of the abandoned, injured and starving horses that we have been privileged to provide with emergency medical care and life-sustaining food while volunteers seek new and loving forever homes for them.