23rd December 2009

Sometimes I despair of fellow man.  The story of the Kilkenny Horses is horrific and I am so proud of Sharon and her team for managing to rescue 41 out of the 60 abandoned horses. Sadly some were sent to slaughter but the IHWT team worked for two days removing the majority of the horses and bringing them into their care.  You can read more about the rescue and, if you are in Ireland, find out how you can help by fostering these beautiful animals by visiting the website at http://www.ihwt.ie.

I worked with ten horses in total over the two days concentrating more on the most needy cases.  Thank heavens for the work that I do.  There were six horses that couldn’t be haltered and three out of these six panicked every time anyone approached.  The sight and sound of traumatised horses throwing themselves around a box in blind panic because a human is near them is desperately sad and also potentially dangerous as they will do anything to keep themselves safe.  I had managed to get two long dressage sticks into my luggage and thank heavens I did.  The calm, gentle process of accustoming the horses to the movement of the sticks, then touching them for the briefest of moments, before progressing to stroking them on the chest, then the front legs etc began on the Monday morning.  When working with horses such as these, I will only spend a few moments at a time working through the steps.  With ten to work with it was easy to remember to keep the sessions short as there was so much to do in such a short amount of time.

Fortunately the horses knew what feed was all about having been at the IHWT for a few weeks and Bev (yard manager) and I worked as a team going from one stable to the next holding buckets of feed and stroking them with the schooling sticks.  From total hysteria in the morning, we achieved calm by the afternoon. One little mare, who has a gorgeous roan filly at foot was perhaps the worst, but as the day progressed I was able to start touching her with my hands.  We were also able to stroke her down her legs with the sticks and tap each hoof as well. I worked along her body and even down her tail which is huge given that fearful horses are usually very sensitive about having their extremities handled. All in all, it only took about 40 minutes to go from sheer hysteria to standing quietly whilst Bev and I worked with her and I always think about situations like this when people try to tell me this way of working with horses is long winded.

 Another horse I worked with was a beautiful show jumping mare who was meant to be put on the slaughter lorry.  She collapsed near the ramp and was rescued by the IHWT . She had the eye of a horse that has given up.  If you have ever had the misfortune to see this you will know just what I mean when I say it is a look that haunts you forever. It isn’t just dull; it is an eye that is filled with such deep sadness that it breaks your heart.  Every time anyone touched her she flinched and trembled so heaven knows what sort of horrors she has experienced.  Although she was desperately depressed, she could be handled if you were quiet and careful with her and I started with the gentle body TTouches.  Although she did initially flinch, the warmth of the gentle movements over her body worked their magic and she began, lowering her head, closing her eyes and sighing deeply.  By the end of the afternoon she stopped moving away when someone entered her stable and there was a look of hope in her eye.

The second day was as amazing as the first.  The petrified mare with the roan foal was fantastic as I taught her to carry a light rope around her neck before making it into a little head collar.  Bev and I were then able to progress to getting a proper head collar on her.  Four more were head collared without any fuss or stress as well which meant that they were able to be turned out to stretch their legs in the fields.  We started teaching another mare the steps for leading as she is off to a new home and the beautiful show jumping mare was unrecognisable. I nearly walked straight past her when I arrived on the yard on the Tuesday as she was looking over her stable door with bright, shining eyes. Wonderful. 

There are more stories too but I cannot write in detail about each and every horse as this blog would be far too long.  Perhaps I will write more in a future blog and I will be going back for sure.  I made it home with only a slight delay and am now ready to finish the shopping and enjoy a quiet Christmas with my gorgeous family.

This entry was posted on 29. December 2009 at 18:12 and is filed under Sarah Fisher. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.