We are extremely pleased to announce that SAFE has been awarded a $4,000 Training Grant from the ASPCA Equine Fund. This grant was given in recognition of SAFE’s commitment to producing good equine citizens who are ready to succeed, through the use of professional training, both offsite and onsite.

The APSCA Equine Fund’s Training Grant was created to improve adoption rates through training for established equine rescues.

A well-trained and well-behaved horse stands a much better chance of finding and keeping a good home for life. Unfortunately, the majority of the unwanted horses that SAFE takes in lack training or even basic handling when they arrive. So it is up to us to give them the foundation that they need to be successful. We send our unstarted horses to professional trainer Andrea Lucianna for 60–90 days under saddle training. Upon graduation from training, these horses, along with the other rideable horses in our program, are worked several days a week by our onsite trainer. In addition, we bring our horses to compete at local schooling shows and we take them on trail rides to increase their exposure to new situations. In 2012, we devoted over $16,800 to training and training board. This ASPCA grant allows us to increase that amount for 2013.

We evaluate the success of our training program in two ways: 1) the progress made by each individual horse; and 2) our ability to place each of our horses into an approved home. Our goal at the end of each horse’s full training session is a horse that is going well at all three gaits, and is safe enough to be considered at least “green broke” and suitable for an intermediate rider. Our goal with our onsite training program is to provide each of our horses with the exercise needed to keep them happy and healthy and to continue to reinforce the skills that were learned in full training.

We are extremely grateful to the ASPCA Equine Fund for its ongoing support of equine rescue organizations like SAFE.