Off Track Thoroughbreds

Open Zipper enjoys a little TLC after arriving in Massachusetts.

After escaping certain death in a Mexican slaughterhouse, a crippled broodmare and her young foal were transported last weekend to a permanent sanctuary home in Massachusetts.

Walking awkwardly on legs misshapen by slab fractures and severe calcification, chestnut Thoroughbred Open Zipper calmly loaded onto a four-stall trailer and traveled with her six-week-old foal Faith to take up residency in Sharon, Mass. with longtime horse advocate and registered nurse Christina Sawelsky.

Sawelsky offered the broodmare and her foal permanent a home after following their harrowing story in social media. Zipper’s ordeal unfolded on Feb. 29 when it came to the attention of horse advocates that the heavily pregnant and crippled mare had been purchased at the New Holland Auction in Pennsylvania, and was destined for slaughter.

Zipper was among a band of pregnant Thoroughbreds who turned up at the auction, touching off a widespread rescue effort led by Gerda’s Animal Aid, Inc. of Vermont. (Please see earlier story here: http://offtrackthoroughbreds.com/2016/03/07/pregnant-horses-rescued-from-meat-buyers/).

While animal welfare advocates worked quickly to raise funds and purchase the pregnant mares, Zipper appeared to have slipped through the cracks, as good as dead, when Vermont rescuer operator Gerda Silver tracked her down.

Faith is a picture-perfect foal destined to enjoy all the best that her new family can offer.

“I knew there was a crippled, older Thoroughbred, and when I found out she’d slipped through the cracks, I was crushed,” Silver told Off Track Thoroughbreds.com in March. “I didn’t want any of them to be lost, for sure. But to lose one and have her possibly endure that kind of trip to Mexico was just too horrible. I had to find her. Finally, our board member Barbara called and found out that the kill buyer’s son had her. She called and asked him to please bring her back, and he said he would, but he wanted $700 for her because he’d have to drive her two hours to bring her back.

“For him to do this, I got to tell you, I was pretty impressed, and so grateful that I cried.”

As Silver published updates about Zipper, Sawelsky read the news with her heart in her throat. The Massachusetts nurse and horse lover followed Zipper’s rescue. And then prayed for her well being after several veterinarians recommended she be destroyed when it appeared her unusual gait, which compensated for her old injuries, was causing her pain.

When the drama died down, and Zipper proved to be comfortable despite her awkward movements, and then later gave birth to a perfect filly, Sawelsky could stand it no more: She stepped up and offered mare and foal a permanent home.

Faith and Open Zipper traveled to Massachusetts last weekend, five months after Zipper narrowly escaped shipping to slaughter while pregnant with her foal.

“Just the fact that she was dumped at auction, heavily in foal, and barely made it out of the slaughter pipeline was amazing to me,” Sawelsky said in an earlier interview. “It was like a movie. I followed the story. I knew all about them through social media. And when I realized they’d be made available for adoption, I knew I had to help.”

After biding her time to allow the filly to grow a little and Zipper to gain weight, Sawelsky got on the road at 4:30 a.m. last Saturday. Accompanied by her equestrian daughter Elisabeth, her sister Lisa and her niece Nicole, the four drove over 5 hours to Goshen, N.Y.

“We met (horse rescuer) Kay O’Hanlon Myruski, and stayed to meet all her adoptable animals. We almost came home with two blind ponies! Then we loaded Zip and Faith and my sister and her daughter, who’d placed pillows in the gooseneck of the trailer so they could ‘camp out’ with the horses and ride home keeping their eyes on them.”

She had been concerned Zipper’s crippled legs might cause her to fall en route. But mare and foal traveled like champs, with a steady breeze blowing across their faces from large, open windows.

Zipper enjoys a spa day in Massachusetts.

Since arriving in Mass., mother and foal have settled into their new home as plans are being made for their future. Sawelsky intends to have a specialist examine Zipper’s legs to see if anything more can be done for her. “The slab fractures are old and have enormous calcifications causing them to be misshapen,” she says. “Poor Zip was just bred and used as a baby maker in her crippled state. I’m surprised she could withstand the breeding process, never mind carrying foal after foal.”

If there’s a way to help her legs, Sawelsky will do it. If not, the mare will live her life as a “pasture ornament.”

“Her condition will be carefully monitored. And whether she has one year or 10 years left, she has paid her dues and will be given the good life she deserves,” she adds. As for Faith, a “stunningly pretty” filly, Sawelsky’s daughter plans to turn her into her own riding horse, one day.

Christina and Elisabeth Sawelsky, who are both registered nurses, will also push forward with plans to create a program for kids and families with disabilities, incorporating humans in a Thoroughbred sanctuary.

“I thank Gerda Silver and Kay O’Hanlon, from the bottom of my heart, for being there to save Zipper from that final ride. And for being willing to take a chance with her,” Sawelsky says. “I’m honored to be chosen as the one to adopt them, and continue their story.”

Barkinspider had a body score of 2 out of 10 when he was found on the Louisiana roadside.

Nobody was looking for Barkinspider the day the shockingly thin colt was collected from a Louisiana roadside like a heap of discarded trash.

Just another unwanted ex-racehorse of no particular value, the petite gray T’bred’s coat had fallen out in patches where the rain rot had gotten to it, and his eyes had dulled with a look of defeat.

When horse-rescue personnel from the Lafayette Parish Animal Control led him onto a trailer to drive him to safety, he offered neither protest nor fight. It was as if the energy to hope for a better life had been drained away by that time, recalls Anne Marie P. Muller, an attorney and avid equestrian.

Barkinspider
New name: Regarding Henry
Barn name: Henry
Sire: Mom’s Little Guy
Dam: Star of Maurice
Foal date: April 17, 2009“What struck me more than anything was how defeated he seemed,” Muller says. “After I saw his picture on Facebook, I drove an hour to go see him in person, and while I stood with him in his pasture, he allowed me to hold his head in my hands.

“I remember thinking, ‘How do you walk away from that?’ If it wasn’t going to be me, who else would it be? I had to take him.”

Muller decided quickly. Not knowing what lay beneath the wreckage of an animal found wandering a highway—had he escaped from somewhere terrible, had a careless owner just dumped him? — Muller knew that this was the horse she wanted to help.

“I’d been thinking about rescuing a horse for some time,” she says. Having ridden “made” horses herself, and having witnessed many excellent riders doing the same on highly trained animals, Muller felt in her bones that to be a truly great horseman, she would have to bring a horse along from the bottom up. “Anybody can ride a made horse if they’re a decent rider, but to be an excellent rider, a more complete rider, you have to train a horse from scratch,” she reasons.

Regarding Henry blossomed into a sweet child’s ride.

And it so happened that on a late September day last year, as Muller was deciding to rescue the little animal from his lonely pasture, the Animal Control center that had scooped him up was about to grapple with an abuse and neglect case involving 75 horses. The all-too-common scenario was “overwhelming” Animal Control at the time, and Muller made haste to get the little guy she would rename Henry to a new home; her home.

“I drove back a week later with my trailer” on Sept. 21 “and I remember that after I opened the trailer, he walked right in, and he whinnied all the way back to the barn,” she says. “He seemed brighter immediately.”

The road to a new life wasn’t without its setbacks, but looking back on the past year, it’s remarkable to Muller how “easy” the little colt’s transition has been.

He regained weight eating good hay with a gradual addition of grain and other feed to his meal plan, and Muller was able to put him into light work a few months after he arrived.

Starting with light ground work, followed by light rides; her plan to gradually build up muscle as he put on weight rewarded her with a nicely rounded, not fat, horse with a mind ready to work.

Henry and his 8-year-old rider Emma Munroe make a pretty picture at a recent show.

“He was putting on weight so fast that I didn’t want him to get fat. Instead I wanted to slowly develop his muscle at the same time,” she explains. “But being as frail as he was, I didn’t want to push him either.”

Another consideration in his training was that he was still a colt. So, she gelded him as soon as it was appropriate. “As his energy returned, I wanted him to have the brain to deal with it. I thought it was important to get him into a routine early,” she adds.

When she thinks of all the things that could have gone wrong, of the horror stories she’s heard about rescue horses, Henry seemed ridiculously easy to bring along. Aside from rain rot, which cleared up with medical treatment, and poorly shaped feet, which are slowly being reconfigured to allow his frog more comfort, Henry’s recovery from starvation and neglect was a very smooth ride.

“There are so many stories I hear about with rescues, with abscesses, and bucking,” she says. “He didn’t have any of those issues, and the first time I rode him, he was easy.”

In no time, Henry started competing in local shows with 8-year-old rider Emma Munroe. At a recent show, the pair was First Reserve Champions in a walk-trot equitation class, Muller says with pride. And in a pre-green 2-foot-six course, he has shown a great aptitude for jumping. He jumps so big with his balanced, well-muscled body that Muller fully believes her little throw-away horse will never go unvalued again.

“A horse needs to have some kind of value. It’s very important for them to have some kind of marketability,” she says. “There are so many Thoroughbreds in Louisiana that need training and need futures that there are not enough horse people to take them all.

“Henry has value to me, and he’ll have a home for the rest of his life now.”

—Author’s note: This story was originally published on Aug. 22, 2013. #TBT