Heart Of Phoenix Equine Rescue

from July 2021 Saddle Up! Magazine

Eversole, R.: Dogs On The Trails

By Suzanna Johnson & Tinia Creamer, Heart of Phoenix Rescue In early April of 2021, the phone at Heart of Phoenix Equine Rescue began ringing off the hook beginning at 5:00 am. Our Facebook messenger was overwhelmed with stories of a very thin horse running down the middle of the road in West Virginia. His story was shared nationally and we got calls from everywhere, including out west begging us to do something. We were over two hours away from where the horse was located. A well-meaning good citizen got to the horse and picked him up before we could. Thankfully he was a horse that had just recently been dumped out on to the mine site, and he had been handled by humans before; unlike many of the other unfortunate thousands of horses who are living out there. Animal Control Officers were concerned about this stallion’s welfare and rightly so, since very thin horses need careful rehabilitation and a good deal of money to do it properly. They went out to check on him and requested that our organization take him into our facility, because he needed much more than would be able to be provided to him where he currently was. Volunteers left immediately to pick him up and bring him back for our veterinarian to see and stabilize. We named him “Deliverance” and affectionately call him Anse, after the well-known patriarch of the Hatfield family. In West Virginia and surrounding states, thousands of horses have been and continue to be turned out onto former and active mine sites. The locations are typically made up of continuous mountainous acres, winding roads, cliffs and coal trucks. Throughout the winter many horses will die or come near to death. In fact they occasionally starve in the summer because reclamation sites aren’t intended to support large amounts of equines. They come down to lick salt from the roadways, as their bodies cannot get what they need on the mountains. They are routinely hit by vehicles or cause horrible accidents as people swerve to miss them. Anse was deliberately released out onto such a site and as the newcomer and a young stallion at that, was brutally rejected from the herd. He was more than likely placed out there in the hopes that he would introduce color into the next crop of foals. Where he was located, it is not uncommon for these horses to be rounded up and sold for a profit and colors with splashy markings is much more marketable. Unfortunately for him there was only one good water source and the resident herd kept him from the hydration that his body was crying out for. This is how he came to be out on the roadway where he was picked up. That particular road ran right by a creek and he was desperately seeking the life sustaining liquid. The story of Anse is not an uncommon story in the coal fields of West Virginia and sometimes Kentucky. Of these abandoned horses some are born feral, but many are friendly, being composed of previous trail, show or companion horses left to attempt to make do in ways they were not bred to, in areas that cannot sustain them all. In rural areas of Appalachia where there are few economic opportunities, we have seen these horses marketed as tourist attractions: “Come ride ATVs and look at wild horses…the mustangs of the East.” To some this might sound compelling, but the truth is much darker and more grim than portrayed. These are not wild horses. They are abandoned domestic horses, left without proper care. They are someone’s discarded equines, many used to being blanketed in the winter, raking out a poor life on harsh, unsuitable geography. They are not a tourist attraction. These horses are a crisis of epic proportion in need of help. Since coming to Heart of Phoenix Equine Rescue, Anse has received the help he was so in need of. So far he has gained close to 100 pounds and was gelded, vaccinated and dewormed.

Several years ago the Heart of Phoenix Equine Rescue implemented a groundbreaking solution for untrained rescue horses of all breeds, known as the Appalachian Trainer Face Off (ATFO), somewhat similar to the Extreme Mustang Makeover. Anse has been placed into our ATFO program, where he was paired with professional trainer Laura Funderburg of Yellow Springs, to get the foundational education that every equine should receive to make them solid horse citizens. Anse will never have a bad day again in his life and will eventually get adopted out into a loving, forever home. His pitiful picture circulated all over the United States and brought awareness to the feral mine horse problem that many did not previously know about. Our dream here at Heart of Phoenix Equine Rescue is to eventually not be needed and only by educating the public will this dream ever have a chance at coming to fruition.