Rescuing Mack

This is

Mack,

he use to live at our old farm with us, for 3 years.

Big Appy gelding, so smart, a stinker, awesome to ride.

He was eating so his mouth looks wonky.

His owner is a very good friend of mine, she was with me when Wifi was born, I was with her when her colt, Maverick, was born & even though she built her own barn and moved away, we have kept in touch over the years.

A little back history on Mack...

He is 18 now and she got him as a yearling. He was used for 4-H, local shows and even shown 'A' system for a while. He was a driving horse, English, Western and a little Dressage.

In the barn he was a PLEASURE to have around. This is the first horse I was able to canter on after having been thrown from Joey and I still trust this horse more than Joey and that's saying a LOT.

He had no vices EXCEPT he taught me to feed him on command.

Last year Mack was leased out to a local family for the teen daughter to use for 4-H and WASET. They agreed to take lessons from Delicia for Dressage and wanted to show him A system. But they didn't follow through with that, they were only taking him to the WASET lessons (with a crappy trainer) and local schooling shows, no lessons with Delicia, no dressage.

In fact, they damaged Mack. At a show last month he reared up 5 times in Showmanship (because the girl was using a chain under his chin), supposedly he 'destroys' stalls, he will not load into the trailer, he has no manners and he bites. Hes got ulcers and his feet were RUINED by their shitty farrier and the new one put 3" pads on. WTF? His feet look better but they still look like shit.

His owner has been VERY worried about him & his behavior for a couple months and spoke to them about it, whereupon the mom, we'll just call her CRAZY on here, totally went batshit crazy and abusive to the owner. It was so bad that the owner left the appaloosa club she'd been in for years  because this family is in it now.

Owner decided that for her own sanity, she would sell Mack to the family and offered him to them for $5,000 when his previous value had been 10k. CRAZY went batshit again, said he had all these health problems, his feet are no good, hes a biter, he won't load. 

Um, wait a second, YOU caused this to happen. 

CRAZY was hand feeding him peppermints every day, like a bag a week. They weren't making him behave, they were just bad horsemen and the stable owner wasn't correcting their bad behavior.

This last week owner spoke with me several times, she couldn't decide what to do. I knew what she needed to do and told her that I wasn't going to try to talk her into selling to them and that if she wasn't sure about it then it wasn't the right thing to do at all. She would no longer talk to CRAZY at all and daughter was unresponsive plus being a minor the owner couldn't make any sort of deal with her.

So today I took my truck and trailer over to the boarding stable and got him. They knew it was going to be today but they didn't know when or that it was going to be me, they also didn't know the owner wouldn't be there as I told her to stay down the street in her own car. I took Karen because she won't put up with any BULLSHIT and she has a lot of experience with horses.

We pulled into the stable yard, I saw the daughter, I waved and smiled, then I pulled around the circle so I was heading out of the yard. The daughter came to me and asked if the owner was coming and I told her no, I had asked her to stay away. The daughter then called owner a Coward. I just turned and walked away, got the trailer ready. Stable owner came to ask me something, then she came back and said she couldn't let me take him, she didn't feel good about it so I showed her the copy of the hauling agreement. THANK GOD I thought ahead on that point.

Then the daughter brought Mack over, handed me the lead rope and started bitching at me. Once again I turned away and ignored her, taking Mack to the back of the trailer. Right then stable owner asked if they were bringing the tack over or if we were going to get it and Karen walked away. Mack walked into the trailer and was FINE. But I couldn't get the divider closed and he decided to not be FINE and he was LEAVING, banging his head on the way out. 

When Karen got back she got him in again and I closed the divider but he was leaving again before I could let Karen out so I just opened it and we let him go. Once again we got him into the trailer and this time we hooked the divider and Karen climbed out through the window. 

And then the theatrics started. The daughter was BAWLING big and loud over by the barn, all for attention. Karen and I just laughed.

The whole time we were at the farm was about 15 minutes.  I passed Macks owner as I was leaving, told her we would talk back at my house. When we got here Mack unloaded by jumping over the ramp and he wasn't paying particular attention to his owner but she immediately began to set him straight. Meanwhile I was telling her word for word of what had been said, which wasn't a lot. 

We tried to get him to walk into a stall and he wouldn't go in so he got a little reminder lesson on manners.  Then he walked right into the stall. He only whinnied for my horses once, then he settled down. That's when we noticed he wasn't RIGHT. He was drugged and over the course of the day we saw it wearing off. 

Since Mack had been at our previous farm, he knew Joey well so after an hour or so, we turned him out with Joey and Wifi. Joey was HAPPY to see him, snorting and squealing while Wifi was hesitant to approach him. She surprised me and stayed in the arena for a while just watching the boys. When she did approach, she kept the fence between them. 

By the end of the day they were all hanging out together but still wary of each other. I put Joey and Mack into Comfort Stalls and left Wifi in the arena where the boys could see her. 

Mack is 16.2hh and Joey 16hh but since they are built so differently it seems like Mack is a lot taller. You can see in the photo Mack in the stall and he can easily put his head over the divider. Joey can

too but its more difficult for him and Wifi cant get her head over it at all.

Obviously, Mack is staying here and he will be for about 6 weeks. His girl will come over and work with him but hes just going to be a horse and have some time off to recuperate. Hes going to be getting lessons in manners and to pay attention to the person who is working with him. If he tries to run over me hes going to get a lesson but it shouldn't take more than a couple times and if he bites me hes going to think I'm killing him for about 3 seconds.

Tomorrow I'll put all their hay up in the back pasture, way up on top, very spread out. Then I'll put Wifi into one of the temporary stalls in the arena, put Joey in with her and Mack in next. Lastly, I'll open the gate to the pasture so they can all go eat.