The Good Life

All of our CANTER horses start life out in the most relaxing way possible. They are brought to a 300 acre farm in Frederick Maryland directly from the racetrack and put into a stall to begin transitioning to the life of an outdoor horse.

First things first, all of our horses are quarantined and fecal tested. Thats the yucky part, the ponies would tell you. For the most part our donated horses arrive in excellent condition with good body weight. This will change over the coming weeks, depending on what drugs are in their system (More on this later). In this first week we also remove at the very least the hind shoes, and at times the fronts as well. Racehorses all run in “Toe Grabs” which can injure other horses and themselves quite severely.

Once our guys are giving the all-clear, they transition into a big paddock with large overhangs until they get the swing of things. At this farm, they only get grain the first week or two, and then transition to pasture and various types of hay.

We give our horses many weeks off, as we believe even the sound horses deserve a mental break. It is amazing the difference we see a month out in all of them.

Woody spent the last month of his life in a giant field with yummy alfalfa and a huge barn to hang out in out of the wind and rain. He had very few complaints. After looking at those pastures, Would you?