Charley was a slaughterhouse rescue.  He was small, skinny, and laminitic.  When we came across him he was at the stable of a woman who raised Arabians.  She was trying to find a home for him.  When we went into her pasture to see a filly we had seen as a newborn who was now a yearling, Charley pushed in front of the Arabians to say hello to us.  We think he chose us to be his people.

 

We took him on as a horse that was unrideable but one we could learn about horses from.  With good food, supplements, hoof care, and love, he blossomed.  His hooves blew abscesses at the rate of about one every other week.  About three months into his new program, the farrier declared that with Easyboots, he could be ridden.   Charley still prefers nothing faster than a trot, but that is just fine with us.

 

Larry tracked down Charleys last foal before he was gelded and brought her to the boarding stable where we kept Charley before we moved him to our place.  We named her Aurora and her story will come later.  Suffice it to say, Charley was the happiest horse on the planet when she came back to him.

 

One day a mare at his boarding stable foaled.  Charley was the only gelding allowed into the mares' pasture because he could be trusted to keep them from any harm; he was their guardian.

 

One day there was no human at the stable when we arrived to visit Charley.  Looking at the pasture, we saw an odd arrangement.  All the mares and the foal were in one corner with Charley in front of them.  All were looking at the opposite corner of the pasture.  We walked toward them and saw the reason.  Hidden from our view originally was one of the stallions.  He had escaped from his paddock and gotten into the field with the mares, foal, and Charley.  Charley had backed him into a corner and was keeping himself between the stallion and the others.  They remained safe while he stood guard.  He was just waiting for his humans to come to help him.

 

We got lunge whips and entered the pasture in a gate behind where Charley held the stallion at bay.  We were able to get all the mares and foal out of the gate like hostages being rescued from a bank hold-up.  When they were out of the pasture, we got Charleys attention and he also got through the gate while we kept the stallion back with the whips.  When we were all out, we checked everyone over.  None of the mares or the foal had been harmed.  Charley had a few bites.  The stallion had enough bites and kicks that a vet had to be called for him. 

 

Little Charley was the hero of the stable.

 

Shortly afterwards, Charley and Aurora moved to our place.  We had to put in some work before they came since the pastures were full of hurricane Wilma debris.  We used electric rope fencing to keep them away from the perimeter fencing because it still wasn't sound.  We weren't sure if they had ever experienced electric fencing so we stood by to see how it went.  Charley took one look at the single strand, hunkered down, and did the limbo under it.  That afternoon we ran a second strand around the property.

 

Charley is now the alpha horse.  Pretty good for one who looked so pathetic when we first saw him.  He is a really handsome bay in the winter; summer sunshine bleaches his coat to a less shiny color.  He has taken a young gelding, Locksley, under his wing and is training him to take over eventually.  Not all that soon, though.