General Snowplow of Rosemary Farm

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Carien Schippers
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General Snowplow of Rosemary Farm

Post by Carien Schippers »

Meet General Snowplow, welcomed to Rosemary Farm Sanctuary on Christmas Day 2016. Text from the Rosemary Farm (http://rosemaryfarm.org/) website:

As a 23 yo senior horse who was not always well behaved, he was not the best candidate for us to say yes, when we were asked to help him. While we love senior horses, many don't thrive with a move at that age, especially if they love home, and it's often kinder to keep them there until funds or health require a conclusion. Having been at the receiving end of senior horses who felt betrayed and abandoned, we generally share this knowledge with family. However, Plow's person had died, several months prior, and Plow was already grieving her loss, as well as a move to a boarding barn for the short term, and the loss of all he knew. She had owned him for nearly his entire life; rode, trained, cleaned his stall, was with him every single day...and now she was gone. Without violating too much family privacy I think we can share that it was a recurrence of the cancer she thought she had beaten, and she left behind a grieving son and a grieving horse, and one could not afford the other. Attempts to re-home him had been unsuccessful; what do you do with a retired high-end show horse? He sometimes bucked people off, he sometimes crowded and pushed, he knew his size and also his charm....months of searching were not finding an answer. When he was presented to Rosemary Farm, at first we suggested they consider euthanasia, because of our general knowledge, but the more we learned of his loving owner, of his care and training, the more it seemed like he not only might work out here, but that they all needed some extra grace somewhere.... that was not the way his chapter should end. Many people have written privately to tell us about his owner, what a quiet and gentle horsewoman she was, and taken before her time. And many loved this horse, but no one was in the position to welcome him...
So on Christmas, we said yes to Plow.
It was dodgy at first, this grieving big horse did test and did take down a few things, but he was also really in need of connection. She had given him many gifts, and one was the gift of being able to love and be loved in return. Plow so needed to connect again, and after a time, after a few medical scares, he did. And we did, and Plow became part of the Rosemary Farm family.
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"Doing what you love is freedom,
Loving what you do is happiness"

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