Betty

I didn't need another horse, I didn't want another horse, I can't have another horse....  yet there is another horse here on our farm....  (Good god, like I didn't need anything more in my life to do.)  I'm up to my limit with every project that we have here, and stuff just keeps coming this way.  I need a tattoo across my forehead that says, "I'm officially done - I don't need anymore of anything right now."

But, well....errr here she is.  This is "Betty", a stunning 5 year old quarter horse filly.  Betty didn't have a name before she came here to our farm, so her previous owners just called her "horse".  I decided to call her something-anything, and the handle of "Betty" just stuck.

This whole situation started a few days ago when a close friend of ours said that he was going to shoot his horse.  I asked "why?'  He replied that he didn't want to feed it anymore.  With the hay prices being as ungodly high as they are right now, I could understand why he didn't want to keep any livestock around anymore.  Some very hard times have fallen upon our friend lately in both financially and physcholigical ways, so the decision to get rid of his horse was one that I could understand.  But just outright shooting a perfectly good 5 year old stunning QH filly was a little beyond my brains grasp.....  So I asked him why he just didn't sell it.  (I had seen the horse as a two year old and knew what she looked like.  She's a gorgeous filly, and easily worth at least a small amount of money.)  The reply came, "nobody would want her".  I said, "a papered QH - why?"   The answer that came back was one of much sorrow and great disappointment....

"She has HERDA."

My heart dropped.  "Damn, that's too bad", I said.  I was about to turn and walk away, when I heard our friend's next sentence, "Do you want her?"  I said rather rapidly, "not really", and continued to walk away.  I thought: what in the hell would I do with a horse that was rendered un-useable by a genetic disease?  I heard our friend's next sentence follow briskly, "I don't really want to shoot her, but I'm going to do it if somebody doesn't come and take her."  The softer more gullible side of my emotions were starting to drift towards the surface...

I went and sat down a few feet away and my brain hashed out several swear words over and over and over again.  I didn't need another horse, especially one that has this big of a problem.  Without any prompting, our friend immediately delved into the history of his filly - (I was sitting down, so therefore that was the signal to start talking more about the horse....)  He had bred and raised the filly from a baby, with grand aspirations of sending her to a top trainer and turning her into a cutting horse and sell her for a pretty penny.  Our friend had done this before with other horses that he has raised, so this little filly was heading down the same road as his other previous foals crops.  Little did he know that the mating between his stallion and one acquired mare would result in a rather sizeable problem later on in the future...

Betty was started as a three year old by a local "cowboy" just to get her going under saddle, and like most of the horses that are afflicted with the disease, it was discovered during this time that she had HERDA.  The skin on her back started puffing up and moving with the weight of a big heavy rider and tack.  After 30 days of starting her working career, she was given back to our friend with the plan of being a pasture ornament for the rest of her life.  (Or for however long that her lifespan might turn out be...)

So, there she sat for the next two years, in a pasture as an ornament.  Eating and mowing the field down.  Unfortunately, 3 months ago our friends house just happened to burn down with all of his possesions and money in it - so this turn of events became a not-so-pleasant financial pickle.  Purchasing hay for an un-wanted horse in the upcoming winter months is the least of your worries when you're homeless yourself.  So, here she is.

I grumbled and mumbled under my breath about taking her, because this means having to work extra hard to come up with the money to buy more hay for another mouth to feed.  But hey, that's life.  Things come your way that you don't expect sometimes.  Craig didn't care that I took the horse in, because it's his close friend that owned it..... so, I fortunately wasn't in the dog-house about that.  But with 5 other young horses that need steady work and riding - and only one of me to go around - that's what is giving me the most hesitations about taking another one on.  (And yes, I do have some small plans for her, which will give her at least a tiny job in her small blip of an existance....)

Since Betty was a pasture ornament for a few years, there are a few minor areas that need some up-keeping.  Her feet is one of them, as it's been awhile since she's been trimmed.

I also need to run a comb through that rats-nest of a mane...

And since she was out on pasture for quite awhile, she's kind-of obesely fat.  Her neck and butt have dimples where they wouldn't normally be.  Although, it's much better that she is fat - rather than being neglected to the point of starvation, like her mother was.  (Oh yeah - I remember Betty's mother.  She was a nice looking athletic bay mare.  A few years ago, I picked her up and hauled her in our trailer back to our friend's house, after she was sold to someone locally who almost starved her to death.  I felt REALLY badly for the mare.  No animal deserves to be starved to the point of being bone thin.  Our friend fattened her back up again on pasture before she went home - but unfortunately she just went back to the same crappy situation with the other owners.  It was terrible.  Sometime feel free to ask me why I don't like selling horses...)  But anyway, that's another story, and I've digressed...

There's only one big major black scar from where the saddle rubbed on Betty when she was started as a three year old.  (The white mark in the photo is from bird poop.)  It's luckily not as gruesome as some of the peeled up nasty skin photos on the internet that I've seen while researching horses affected with HERDA.  Her scar is workable and not too bad.  It remains to be seen if she develops any more further injuries from just sitting and doing nothing - as some horses will do with this disease.  But we'll giver her a chance and see what happens.  She might surprise us, you never know.  She'll have a pretty easy job until the disease gets to the point where it causes her pain and she has to be humanely euthanized.  Each horse is affected on an individual bases with this disease, so it's unclear just how long it will take until it affects her to the point where she has no quality of life.  She's already beaten the standard 4 years so far, so maybe she'll last a little bit longer.  I dunno.  We'll see how far she can make it before we pull the plug.  Betty at least deserves a small chance to do something.  Right now she's comfortable, happy, full of energy, ready for a job, and loves life.  Just like any other horse in the world...