Anastasia’s Ally, 17, proved her mettle well before the Days End Farm Horse Rescue Trainer’s Challenge in Woodbine June 6.
The Arabian mare, formerly used as a broodmare, was starving, with a body condition score of 1.5 (between extremely emaciated and emaciated) on the nine-point Henneke scale when she came to Days End last summer.
A photo of her, taken close to the time she was seized in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, showed a chestnut horse with little but skin and hair covering her hips, tail bone and ribs. Two other horses seized with her from people trying to sell the horses did not survive.
Days End has been heralded as a national leader for its success in rehabilitating abused and neglected equines, as well as for spending almost all the money it receives directly on caring for the animals and finding them good homes.
But scores of onlookers at the fourth annual competition last Saturday at the rescue farm near Mount Airy did not need the highest four-star rating from Charity Navigator, awarded to Days End 10 years in a row, to see that the horses had come far from untended hooves, dull hair coats and wondering when, or if, they’d get fed and watered.
Shine of the horses’ coats and light in their eyes reflected ample good forage, regular deworming and lots of care and grooming.
‘Unlimited potential’
Ana, as she is known among her friends, placed fifth among the six horses in the event, her scores lowered by her wariness of the noise and distractions of the show ring.
No one knows all the fears Ana faced in the 16 years before she knew the comfort she found at Days End.
Despite Ana’s difficulties on show day, trainer James Blehr smiled and told the crowd afterward that he believes she has “unlimited potential.”
“It’s the sweetest thing for a horse to come from severe neglect and trust people,” Blehr, of Silver Spring, said.
Ninety days before, each horse had left Days End where they began, less than a year ago, the process of gaining weight and physical health.
None of the six horses in the competition were trained to ride when they arrived at the farm, Days End executive director Erin Ochoa said.
Only three of the six horses in the competition were 10 or younger when they embarked on three months of schooling under the horsemen and horsewomen who donated board and training to increase their prospects for being adopted.
Except for Ana, all other horses in the competition — four geldings and one mare – were part of a herd of neglected horses found running loose, unhandled and untrained, on 150 acres in Prince George’s County.
Among the eight from that herd who came to Days End were four stallions and two pregnant mares, all believed to pure- or part- Thoroughbred.
Those four former stallions, now geldings, and one mare, who delivered her foal two days after being rescued, rounded out this year’s Trainers Challenge. It was held on the same day last weekend that another, much luckier thoroughbred, was about to become the 12th Triple Crown winner.
Huckleberry, who is believed to be 9-going-on-10 years old, and trainer Chelsea Faulkner of St. Michaels, met an extra challenge halfway through the 90-day preparation. Faulkner was hospitalized and forced to suspend mounted work. She had proceeded slowly anyway, having discovered scars on Huckleberry’s withers. But within the first month, she rode him through water and on trails without incident. She was “baffled” by his quiet, calm but curious personality.
So impressed was she that she decided to keep him.
So at the competition, Faulkner, who is still recovering, brought Huckleberry, whose gleaming bay coat she had accented with glitter, into the ring where she was awarded his adoption papers.
Panache
Trainer Jimmy Wagner adopted Days End Farm as his second home when he began volunteering at the rescue as 4-year-old.
Back then, the rescue operation was based a few miles away in Lisbon and Jimmy was a boy obsessed with watching them from his daycare center across the road. Now 19, Wagner is a year younger than his charge Navigator. Wagner is Days End’s maintenance man, as well as a part-time horse trainer and poet. He and “Gator” conquered the obstacle course with panache: They carried, as well as pushed, a large ball and didn’t just turn, but performed spins after stepping inside a hula hoop set on the ground.
In a freestyle performance set to music, they cantered a figure-eight dragging a tarp (a scary task for prey animals whose instincts tell them they could be eaten if pursued). On command, Gator laid on his side quietly while the tarp was drawn over them, then Gator rose with Wagner astride and Wagner stood in the saddle.
They placed fourth, behind Mackintosh, 21, who performed in hand, rather than mounted, because he had shown some soreness. “Mac” put in an obedient, mostly quiet performance, even loading immediately into a horse trailer — a task he had balked when he was rescued from the feral herd.
Trainer Sarah Grady of Mineral, Virginia, learned that Mac enjoys being groomed and loves getting the attention he missed during most of his life.
Placing second was Gwen, not-yet 10, who, with her trainer Josie Howard, showed (except for two slight bobbles) that she could win a trail horse competition almost anywhere.
Yet 14 months ago Gwen had not carried a rider and was in foal with a filly she gave birth to just two days after arriving at Days End.
The mare had struggled to make enough milk, and Days End workers bottle-fed milk replacer to supplement the diet of her baby, O’Hana.
Days End development director Caroline Robertson said that O’Hana, now a yearling, is healthy and showing much promise as she grows at the farm.
And mother Gwen, now attentive to her rider, logged a rhythmic, nearly seamless freestyle performance on her return to Days End. Howard said Gwen is talented and loves to please people whom she has learned to trust.
Smitten with the mare, Howard is taking Gwen back to her Harrisonburg, Virginia, farm for another 90 days training.
Edging out Gwen for the win was Jeremiah, 4, whose history of neglect is, perhaps, half as long as that of the horses he outscored.
“He’s a super sweet boy and never stopped trying,” even when he had a bad day, trainer Kaitlyn Heckner, of Harford County, said of Jeremiah.
The bay youngster, who apparently grew taller than his last recorded 15-hand-and-2-inches height while away at school, turned not a hair while negotiating every obstacle, including standing while his rider opened and closed a mailbox and walking through a chute of straw bales festooned with bobbing balloons.
“It’s our belief … that each of these horses are winners,” Kenny Harlow, one of three judges for the competition, told the crowd.
“They’ve come through a lot,” said Harlow, whose Cumberland, Va.-based horse training business is called “Training with Trust.”
Margie Hyslop is a free-lance writer who also enjoys horseback riding.
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