what would you do?

Chestersmummy

Chestersmummy

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Yesterday my friend and I (with ny mum) went on a 5 hour drive to pick up a horse for loan that she had never seen. We go there and off she goes to fetch the horse in. Whilst she was doing that the farmer got the horses rugs out. Well i know some of my rugs could do with a bit of patching but these rugs were unusable. Anyway the lady who was currently looking after the horse (the owner was away for the weekend) came up with some sorry looking bits of a grooming kit, no tack or headcollar, luckily we took my geldings. My friend brought the horse down from the field and my word I have never ever seen such a sorry looking horse in all my life. He had cronic rainscald on every last bit of his body, he had a bloated belly from all the grass, his hip bones were out from obviously being extreamly underweight at one point, his feet were a mess and he could barely eat as his teeth were awful. My friend was told he was a timid loader so we expected to be there a while. As soon as he saw the trailer he started shaking violently and looked like his legs were going to buckle. We tried coaxing him on with food but he was having non of it. Cue 3 yes 3 hours later, some of the farmers friends came and tried to "help" us load. There idea was to tie the lead rope to the partition. Cue the horse rearing and my leadrope (a good one at that) snapping. Said farmers then got some old fashioned rope, tied it to various other parts of the trailer and horse was still having none of it. My mum is having to go to hospital later as she has got severe rope burn and bits of the rope inbedded in her fingers (tried to make her stay home from work today but she won't), i have put my back out again and my friend has a bit of rope burn. In the end my mum told the farmers to stop as the horse was distressed and was either going to hurt himself or someone else. We made the decsion to leaveu huim there which was heartbreaking. The owner rings my friend on the way home to say she was ringing the vet to sedate the horse so we could load it. My friend refused to go back as with the horse in the trailer it was a 7 hour journey home and i believe it wasn't in the horses best intrest to have a horse sedated for that amount of time.
Anyway I've told my friend to get in touch with some rescue places as the horse is clearly neglected.
I know its my friends fault for going to get a horse she had only seen old pictures of but all I was doing is towing the trailer under mums instruction. So basically yesterday I left the house at 6am and didn't get back home until 10pm.
Would you call the rspca/blue cross etc to get the horse away from clearly incompetant people. If he would have loaded we'd have taken him home with us.
 
Wow. What a catalogue of errors.

I am quite at a loss as to what to say regarding loaning a horse unseen and unridden, the owner not being present (and therefore never meeting the loanee), and spending three hours trying to load the poor beast using unsatisfactory equipment and people without knowledge of how to load a horse.

If you are concerned about the condition of the horse report it to WHW (or whatever they are called nowadays) or similar, they will visit him and take it from there if they agree with your concerns, although it sounds as if the poor things owner was happy to dump it on anyone who showed an interest in him.
 
Poor horse! I would second the suggestion of World Horse Welfare, RSPCA are a waste of time.

Your friend is very trusting to take on a loan of a horse unseen, but let's hope that something good comes out of this.
 
That is awful - poor horse and poor you!

Please, next time you try to load a difficult animal, always wear gloves and use a lunge line or a rope an awful lot longer than a normal leadrope. A hat is also a good idea!
 
I had my hat on and a lungeline. You say it we tried it.
I don't know what my friend is going to do but from what I can gather the owner of the horse has just left it in a field at Easter and asked someone she knows to look after it. They have since fell out and it seems to me that the poor horse is being used as some sort of weapon. I'll ask my friend tomorrow to ring whw and report the horse. I think she is staying well away from him now.
I gave both my horses extra cuddles tonight as I know I am extreamly lucky to have 2 gorgeous healthy (albeit slightly fat) horses that I would do anything for.
 
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