Two mares arrived together at Happy Trails on Thursday, January 5th, 2011. Exactly one week to the day before these girls arrived at Happy Trails we welcomed Sonyador, a big, sweet, Percheron-Standardbred-mix mare, who was experiencing the same situation. A fellow rescue worker heard of these three Amish horses in Pennsylvania that were in the possession of a horse broker, a person who takes unwanted horses by the trailer-full to the horse auctions where they are purchased by the meat buyers and sent to slaughter. All three were destined to be shipped to Sugarcreek, where they would be quickly run through the sale and in a matter of hours loaded onto a transport truck heading to a slaughter house in either Mexico or Canada. Sonyador was the first lucky one to have her rescue arranged by the rescue worker, and it was set-up to have the other two mares arrive at Happy Trails the following week. They arrived in the dark of night and like Sonyador, were unloaded onto the road in front of the sanctuary, the transport truck too large to even attempt to enter the front gates of Happy Trails. The two girls cooperated fully as Happy Trails volunteers anxiously lead them to the back of the sanctuary for an examination and to be fitted for blankets. They seemed to trust us well enough and stood fairly politely after their long, stressful ride with the broker. Read the full story…
