Beauty is doing great at SAFE. She has completed the intake process and has settled into the routine of the barn. Her dull starvation coat is shedding away and soon she will be shining like a copper penny. She is very gentle, likes attention and is a kind mare. She LOVES meal time and tells us with her sweet little nickers how much she wants her senior feed. Beauty needs to be on a all-grain diet due to the condition of her teeth but she can still can graze on grass. She loves other horses and will make a great companion. We hope she can find a loving home to give her the retirement she deserves. This “granny” is ready to be adopted!
SAFE volunteer rider Julie W had this to share about her work with Beauty:
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Beauty on groundwork and leading twice this last week and I’ve endearingly begun referring to her as Grandma. My first impression is that she may jig to keep up with her faster walking companions and she is about as stiff as a 2x4 with no idea how to move her body in a more comfortable and relaxed way! But this little old lady has a ton of life, seems gentle, and strikes me as a quick learner. She started out a bit high and “lookie” while on the lead, a little clueless about my space, and wanting to jig some, but quickly leveled out and started seeking more of my feel as things started to click. She was absolutely unphased by my flag, a rope around her front feet, or a lead tossed over her back.
“For our second session, I had my mare Sophie (who I adopted from SAFE back in 2017) with me and after a short refresher with Grandma, err.. I mean Beauty, I climbed on Sophie and started working Beauty from horseback. This was another non-issue for Beauty and a great learning experience for Sophie, who has never ponied a horse before. We worked on having Beauty following more of a feel. I used Sophie’s body to help Beauty step through and reach better with her front end while changing direction. There was a huge change here for Beauty. She did scoot past me once when leading back to the turnout and so I think the next goal would be to work more on changing eyes and with things coming out of her blind spot. I’m also not sure, at her age, if she might not have some vision loss and if that could logically explain her rare and brief moments of surprise — something to look into more if it hasn’t been already. I’m looking forward to more transformation from this mare, as she continues to gain weight and gets a bit more of an education.”
