Today’s Clearinghouse horse is Ginger, a 15 hand, 1100 pound, 12-15 year old red varnish appaloosa mare. Ginger is blind, but very sweet, and well broke to ride. This is not entirely surprising in that well-trained sighted horses often become well-trained blind horses who remember their training.
As our regular followers know by now, we hear a lot of sad stories from people trying to help horses in need. Ginger’s story is perhaps one of the saddest we have heard to date and we are hoping that someone will step forward to give this deserving girl a home. We also wish to thank Therese for her selflessness and bravery in rescuing this sweet mare. We have included her story as Theresa has submitted it. If there is anyone out there who could use a nice lead-line pony, she sounds just perfect. She is located in Durant, Iowa.
“I happened to be at a sale when I saw this mare unloaded into the slaughter pen. One of the few rules regarding shipping slaughter bound horses is that no blind or maimed horses can be hauled to kill. The cretin who realized she was blind started bludgeoning this poor mare over the head and shoulders with a stock stick, apparently for no reason other than he was mad at the fact she was blind. This poor animal bounced off the metal gates, then stood in one corner, shaking, while she took this abuse. Me being me, I climbed over the gates to confront the man beating her (he was a foot taller and at least 100 pound heavier than I am) and after some heated words he actually considered raising the stock stick to ME. I told him he really should do just that as then he would end up in prison, and he told me that if I was so concerned abo the mare, that I should just take her. Snagging a piece of hay twine off the gate, that’s exactly what I did.
So this mare was not mine, I just happened to be in the wrong (or right) place at the wrong time, and could not walk away. I have too many horses of my own before I took in this mare, and I do not have the proper facilities to house a blind horse. Though she has proven to be an absolutely golden animal, and I wish to help find her an amazing forever home, unfortunately that home cannot be with me.
I have brought her current on vaccinations, farrier care, and worming, and she is at least 100 to 150 pound heavier now than she is in the picture I sent of her. She rides beautifully in either a halter or o-ring snaffle bit, and I have ridden her both bareback and with a western saddle. I rode her in the round pen, an outdoor arena, and then took her down the road and around a bean field, and she did not take a wrong step at any point.
This mare is not in danger, as she will either find her forever home or be humanely euthanized, and I will hold onto her for as long as I possibly can before taking such a drastic step, but the reality is I truly can’t afford to hay another horse over the winter. I have contacted rescues in three states, posted her far and wide over the internet and on Facebook, as well as got her a spot on the local TV news station, but the only person who stepped forward with any serious interest wished to get her to breed to their blind stud. (Really!?) Needless to say, that was not an option. I am not asking an adoption fee, though I am adopting her out with a reference check and signed first right of refusal.”
Theresa can be contacted about Ginger at: thereseiam@yahoo.com