A Question For You

Here’s my thought and question to you. I’ve followed the Camelot Rescue (where an auction buys horses for slaughter but allows a group of people to fundraise and pull these horses (after the auction) before they are slated for “the truck” to slaughter. The sale takes place Wed night and the horses must have homes by Saturday morning. It’s a fast and furious pace to rescue these horses.

Unfortunately in the Midwest, this method is not allowed. You are forced to buy the horse during the auction. There is no opportunity to buy a horse after the auction. I would like to follow in Project Sage’s footsteps and raise money to pull one or two horses from an auction, quarantine that horse(s) for 30 days, evaluate the horse, and then adopt him/her out (with the help of surrounding rescues). Think it’s possible to accomplish something like that? The money from the adoption fee would go back into the auction rescue fund and another horse would be pulled.

August is the beginning of the “dumping season”. Kids go back to school, people realize that summer is almost over and we’ll be faced with six months of winter and daily chores. I’m already seeing cheap horses and it’s still prime riding season. What’s going to happen when August rolls around and people begin “thinning the herd”?

There are always cheap/No Value horses that run through an auction. But those same horses require medical care and major training. We would only bid against the killbuyer and could possibly bid on horses that fit someone requirements. Keep in mind every horse will have some type of quirk. It’ll be a matter of figuring out that quirk.

A good friend once said that sometimes there’s nothing wrong with a loose horse other than a bad home (or something like that). It’s been a 50/50 shot of getting an outstanding horse. Take for instance Bo and Savanna. Bo is trained to ride (although we are holding off yet on riding him until he’s back to proper weight). He’s a happy go lucky horse who only wants to please. Savanna is an unknown and most likely only been a broodmare. She cribs something fierce but is tolerant of me bumbling around. She’s not happy go lucky and she’s also mare-ish so I’m guessing that’s why I struggle (I’m mare-ish enough, I don’t need another mare rubbing her mare-ish behaviors off on me). But each horse should be given a chance to blossom. I believe that once Savanna is to the proper weight and not having to take care of a baby, she’ll turn into a stunning girl.

We don’t typically adopt horses. Our program focuses on the oldsters who need a retirement home where they can live out the rest of their life (may it be years or months or days). But there’s too many good horses going to slaughter and we just can’t sit back and watch it happen. There’s a little Pixar movie that I watch sometimes called Robots and there’s a line in it that has stuck with me. “See a need, fill a need.” There is a need to pull horses from the loose auctions. The horses’ only fault is a bad home. Let’s try to “fill that need” and place some good horses in good homes.

So, think it’s possible to fundraise to pull one or two horses? This Friday is the Mitchell Horse Sale, too late to fundraise but I’ll go to figure out standard prices so that we can have a better idea of what we would be dealing with as far as initial cost. Anyone want to come with? I expect it’ll be fairly short. What are your thoughts? Am I off my rocker on trying to tackle such a project? I’d like to hear your thoughts. If you have any good ideas for fundraising, I’d love to hear those too. The more information the better!