Why do people lie about having rescue horses ?

Funnily enough, the only true rescue horse I’ve known was an absolute little blighter. His loaner had acquired him from a credible charity as a very light hack and brought him to our yard. He had not one redeeming quality other than that he was very handsome. Clearly he had been absolutely doted on in his early life, possibly hand reared, and never really shown much discipline. By the time she got him he was in his late teens and had a touch of arthritis. He’d break free when she tried to tie him up to groom, rifle through pockets so hard he’d knock people off their feet, drag his poor loaner all over the place, either dawdle on hacks or just canter down the road, break fences... he was a nightmare! I think he came to the charity after being found abandoned in a field. She was very good to take him on but he showed not one jot of appreciation for his improved circumstances and made her life hell.
 
Am I a genuine rescuer? Cat turned up in back garden with no hair and desperately skinny - no owner could be tracked down so she moved in. 10 years later she's asleep on an expensive coat.

The Appy had an appointment with the hunt and i decided she needed a second chance so she was given to me. I'm not sure that's #rescue so much as #softtouch ?
 
Now for the proper rescues that I have had.

Gilbert the horse that was left behind in a stable when his owners went to live in France. They had tried all morning to load him onto a wagon with their other horses and when that failed they drove off leaving a 17.3hh horse in a 10'x10' box with no windows. Fortunately for him there were some cattle the new owner of the place had bought with the farm and he found the horse and chucked hay over the door and a bucket of water. When he managed to ring the previous owners they told him to get the hunt in to shoot him. The hunt were away on a jolly with another hunt so they could not come for a week or so.

Gilbert had been in this box for two weeks when I heard about him on the grapevine. A few people had been but found him uncontrollable so left him. I went with Mr R and trailer, flasks of hot drinks and a picnic lunch. No one was living at the farm so I had to improvise and make a pen in the yard with lots of debris left behind by the outgoing folks. Gilbert was turned out to buck and kick and nearly an hour later when he had stopped running around the trailer was backed up to the pen.

A good three hours later and he walked into the trailer. The new owner of the place was horrified that I then led him out again for another go. The new owner had come about lunch time to feed the cattle and stayed to "Watch the show". When I got him home he went into a field. He was an older horse, had shivers, arthritis and a very pronounced sway back. Mr R rode him for a while before we decided that pts was the best option for him.

No money changed hands and the person who took on the farm was really happy to lose the horse.

The other real rescue was the shetland pony that was living in a pub cellar. Bertie had gone in as a foal and came out as an uncastrated two year old with an agression problem. My friends father discovered him and asked us to take him, I do not know if he gave any money to the landlord.

Then there was the horse that was won in a poker game. A drunk knocked on the door in the very early hours of a Sunday morning asking if we would look after his horse. Dad told him to come back when sober, he did and the day after that Red arrived, 16.2hh and a blown tendon. The drunk was a docker and knew nothing at all about animals but he paid all Red's bills for several years and I had great fun and learnt a lot from him as a teenager.

Also not rescued but a freebie was the pony that came as a BOGOF when we bought a saddle for another pony.
 
stormox said:
If you think incidences of cruelty in UK are rare you clearly havent been around the low class fairs and sales - or seen foals and yearlings being whipped into a flat out trot in a sulky with an overweight driver, or cobs and trotters tethered in the sun with no shade or water, and the coloured hairy cobs in fields in winter with no food and dead ones left for days ..... there are some desperate cruel people in UK.
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I lived for many years in the same village as an annual 'Horse Fair'. Members of the travelling community from all over the country would descend on the village to buy and sell their horses. This would of course draw in crowds from the non-travelling community too, and I witnessed many times owners of horses and ponies time their beatings of the poor horses just as prospective buyers would walk past, knowing that they would probably buy out of sympathy ....and they did. The police were not interested and neither the RSPCA that were always present. Also for sale were litters and litters of 4 -5 week old puppies. The whole thing was incredibly sad. It's been closed down now (after 800 years) and I'm delighted.
 
We have a few travellers near us unfortunately. Horses trotted to pubs for miles, so fast they look like they are going to fall over. Then tied up outside pubs in the full sun, with no water. They hit someone’s car a few years back and police said not to take it any further due to the intimidation they’d suffer. I googled one of these people and he drove a pony and trap down a road in London, boiling hot day. Up and down the road they went laughing away until the poor pony dropped down and died ?
 
Rescues arent just thin and under fed I have never understood why people think that. Having seen many pass through our door there are allsorts of reasons why they have been signed over. Owner died and nobody to look after them, community fed horses who have slightly been abandoned when it suits the owner, owner has mental health problems, the list is tobehonest is endless. All of them need quarantine, a full health check including bloods, dental, farrier and body check and then there is the rehab work that goes into helping the animal.
 
I wouldn't describe any of mine as rescue, but most were free or as near as.
A one-balled colt whose owner was moving to livery that wouldn't take him. The ex-wife's pony being treated horribly by the new girlfriend out of spite (IKR). Neurotic unbroken 6yo kicker. Dartmoor with dodgy hocks who chucked kids in the school (circles hurt him). Two direct from Beaulieu sales who would otherwise have gone for meat. Two more indirectly from the sales, bought for 10 gs each at the height of the recession by a lady who sold them on at cost so she go get some more and find them homes. An overjumped PC pony with a bad back whose owner was emigrating.

I suppose 'rescue' is an easy shorthand for cheap, and could easily be applied to many circumstances where the horse might otherwise end up PTS or worse. It's not always a total lie.

The ones that annoy me are when they are then begging for money. If you can't afford to keep and fix it, you are the problem, not the solution.
 
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