Polo Pony Rescue

11/16/2024

Yet another episode in the ongoing saga of "I need a specific kind of horse with no major issues so NATURALLY I bought one from a killpen that I couldn't ride or vet check first."

And you know, I didn't pay "cheep" prices for him so I need to get my money back out of him, too!

*sigh* He reminds me of Fezz. I hope someone on the East coast who is good with this kind of traumatized horse steps up to help him and that the seller will prioritize the good home they say they want for him over getting their money back, whatever it was.

The kill pens and their scammer broker fake rescue friends harm far more horses than they help, and I'll die on that hill forever.

Sharing in the hope that one of our east coast readers decides to help him. Screen capped in case they dirty delete.

11/12/2024

Thank you to our trainer, Monica Whitmer, who attended the HIDHA Banquet this weekend and picked up our prizes!

Ashleigh Dunne and Fenna won this halter for Reserve Champion Novice Showmanship. They also won a blue tote bag for 3rd place in Halter Mares.

Catie Dunne and Michelada won a blue tote bag for 3rd place in Showmanship 12 & Under.

horse Dulzura (fka Scrat) was the Champion Novice English Equitation and Champion Novice English Pleasure with her mom Linda.

11/09/2024

I am actually not at the rescue this weekend!

Thanks to the kindness of multiple volunteers and Irene, Erin and Breanna who are managing things and making sure all goes smoothly with both the small and large critters, I am enjoying a weekend at the Yucca Valley Film Festival. One of my short scripts was selected to be in the festival and they have a screenwriter's panel with all of the winners that we get to participate in tomorrow. Today we've got a Masterclass with multiple Emmy Award winning director Shane Stanley, and of course plenty of great films to enjoy. I met this awesome writer/producer/actress named Melanie Collup who made one of the funniest shorts I've ever seen, about a man left home alone and unsupervised on his first day of retirement. :D I also met Sy Rosen, who has a list of credits a mile long writing for big shows like MASH, Bob Newhart, The Wonder Years, and Gimme a Break.

We have an event tomorrow where we get to pitch our projects to members of the community and see if they like them or not, definitely something I need more practice with because I express myself much better in writing and tend to turn into a blithering idiot verbally under pressure. 🤣

The reason I'm telling you all this on a horse rescue page is to remind you that your favorite rescue is probably run by someone who hardly ever gets to do anything else. They are terrified to leave. They envision empty waters and loose horses getting hit by cars in the road, and the reason they envision that is because it's happened to either them or someone they know! So one of the absolute kindest things you can do as a volunteer/supporter of an animal rescue is to pitch in so that the person running it can leave town, for whatever matters to them - a family reunion, a vacation, a work event, whatever - and not have to stress one iota. I guarantee you, your favorite rescuer - no matter how much they love animals - has some completely unrelated interests and goals in life that they rarely get to enjoy because of the constant level of responsibility inherent in running a rescue. I am SO blessed to have these ladies watching out for the rescue in my absence, and I hope every rescuer finds people just like them.

If you want to follow the YVFF, they're on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/yuccavalleyfilmfestival/?hl=en

Picture of Penny because she's cute and looks pretty darn good for a 25 year old OTTB with Cushings!

11/09/2024

Thank you Jenny for this awesome care package in the mail! Our horses truly appreciate your generosity.

11/06/2024

Meet Brandy!

Brandy is one of the luckiest horses we've ever had. He came in here in October of 2020. At first, we tried to get him sound enough to adopt out since he was such an angel that we knew he'd make someone very happy. But alas, just too much damage was done. His ringbone and arthritis meant he had to be permanently retired.

And then...he won horse lotto. Tamara stepped up to foster him. She has been content with a little ba****ck ride here and there when he's doing better, and with just brushing him and feeding him cookies when he's not. She's got two young boys and she knows this is the horse they can groom and lead and hang with and he's as safe as a live horse can be.

You can't get luckier than this, as an old lame polo pony. 🍀❤🍀

11/05/2024

Today, let's all remember there's only one legitimate reason to hate other Americans and it's if they're feeding sweet feed and crappy hay to off track Thoroughbreds. 🤣

(kidding...OK, well not entirely, but you get the drift)

Seriously though...vote how you like but ffs stop feeding these poor horses the equine equivalent of Twinkies and garbage forage and wondering why they're skinny and psychotic.

You build a horse by what you put in front of them to eat. Make sure you're building a horse you will want to ride and keep forever!

11/04/2024

Chicky is home safe with Mila! Look at the amazing place she found for her to live.

11/02/2024

We're getting into giving season and if you're newer here, I wanted to share some fun facts about our rescue!

- We started out on the last day of 2012, which means we are about to have our 12th anniversary!

- We focus on ex polo ponies and problem horses who are at the end of the line with nowhere else to go. Some of the latter have included a 3 year old who charged people (now adopted & competing successfully in eventing), an 11 and 14 year old who hadn't been handled (a) ever and (b) since a baby and were running loose on nine acres (very friendly now but probably permanent residents!), a 7 year old auction rescue that was so reactive she had nowhere left to go (yeah she's probably staying here too but she is so much better!), and a completely brain fried ex-big time show Paso Fino (he's happily adopted now and rides bridleless).

- A frequently asked question is why polo ponies need rescue when many people playing polo are affluent. My answer is that polo ponies do not have bank accounts. :) While some of our horses are fully sponsored by their polo connections who want them to be safe, others are from people who didn't care where they went. Since horses cannot legally make a claim against those folks, we take care of them.

- That said, we are pro-polo here! I grew up in a polo barn and 100% support the sport. Like all sports, we have some people that need to be voted off the island, but most polo people take great care of their horses and polo primarily involves things horses do loose in the field - running, stopping and turning - so those things are not hard for a fit horse to do, and most polo people are excellent about keeping them fit. Polo ponies generally play one seven minute chukker, two at most (two is more commonly seen in low goal polo, which is not as fast and hard). Lots of them live out on pasture or get a 2 month pasture break in between the winter and summer polo seasons. So if you're against horses being used in sport and want to support a rescue that will agree it's just terrible, we're not the one. I'll call out a bad apple, but overall, we're all in favor of horses and humans having working partnerships whether that's a game like polo or working on a ranch or jumping or dressage. All disciplines need to be more thoughtful about equine welfare, and have harsher penalties for abuse, but we're in favor of improving conditions, not eliminating whole sports. We're not anti-racing, for example, but we are anti-riding 2 year olds for any reason.

- We are completely opposed to equine slaughter for any reason, full stop. We have no issue with veterinary euthanasia or properly done gunshot. We know not everybody is going to keep their old horse for life, but we draw the line at torture, and slaughter is torture 100% of the time. It was NOT better when it was in the U.S. and there is a ton of evidence out there about that.

- We put a huge emphasis on educating the public about better horse care. We can't expect people to magically learn the right things to do! The world is still full of tons of misinformation and some of it comes from horse professionals. So we do things to try to help horses by making the people around them more knowledgeable, like publishing educational content, inviting school groups here to learn about horses and their care, and ALWAYS being willing to help if you message us with a question about what to try with a hard keeper or what might be causing a tough behavioral issue!

- We leased spaces and boarded for many years, thinking we'd never be able to afford a place in Southern California (but discovering I couldn't make enough money in places other than Southern California). Finally, in August 2023, we found the current home of PPR, a five acre (amazingly, flat!) place in Littlerock, which is in Los Angeles County on the northeast side, and fortunately I've been able to keep working fully remote at my regular jobs so I can just come in from chores and plop into my seat looking like I slept in a hayloft and go to work :D

- Our horses live outside 24/7 except that our oldest ones come into stalls overnight so that they can eat one meal separately and receive any medications. They have soft shavings and a lot of them do like to lie down and relax! Everyone has shelters and everyone wears waterproof sheets if it's raining and waterproof blankets when it dips below 40-42ish depending on the wind. We get some wild winds out here so that's always a factor, and Thoroughbreds tend to be wusses even if they have a good winter coat! Although we are in Southern California, we are in what is called the high desert and we can get a little snow once in a while.

- None of our officers are paid in any way. We do pay for some help with chores and dragging pastures so that I can start work on time but unless I'm out of town, which is rare, I am personally out there doing chores twice a day, every day. We sometimes have volunteers at night, and we always have Irene, our star volunteer, who has been coming every single day since 2014. She'd probably shoot me if I posted her age, but let's just say she's doing this at an age where most people's daily workout is walking to the mailbox. She's here 4-6 hours a day no matter what, in all wind and weather. I wish I could clone her!

- I don't delete comments here except for extreme content (i.e. racism or spam). If you have a question about how we do things or you want to critique something, I'm fine with that - bear in mind that I love to debate and am, ha ha, direct. I really do think transparency extends to not deleting comments and criticisms! Even if people still don't agree with you, I think they respect you more if you respond.

- One way in which I know we're different from a lot of organizations is that we really do follow up for life to the very best of our ability. For example, we recently took a return that was originally adopted out in 2015, to a different state. She's back here for retirement now and will stay. I have horses here that originally joined us ten years ago.

- We've had the same board members since we started.

- We've also had the same farrier and vets this whole time!

- Every donation counts! It truly does all add up. If every follower sent $1 a month, we'd be in great shape. As it stands, donations ebb and flow around the course of a year. This is the best time of year, so we try to use it to make any major improvements that are needed and do some of the regular stuff that's a bunch of money at one time, like tooth floating.

- We've been able to make some of our major improvements thanks to estate gifts. This is when you write a charity into your will. Sometimes people do it because they love the charity and sometimes people do it because their kids have aggravated them, LOL! If you are a fan of what we do, please consider including us.

- Want to know something else? Feel free to ask!

- Want to volunteer? Send an email to [email protected] for info!

- Want to help us do what we do? Checks can go to PPR, 35715 80th St. E, Littlerock, CA 93543. Our Venmo is and our Zelle and Paypal are [email protected].

Pictured is one of our school group visitors yesterday with Poca. The horses loved getting a good grooming!

11/01/2024

Great group of high schoolers here today from Options For Youth ! Our trainer Monica has been teaching everyone about grooming while Jami came out to show them how to muck. I’ve even got a group cleaning our disaster area of a tack room. ❤️

11/01/2024

Edited to add: This content should have been credited to Heart of Phoenix - apparently the post I shared was stolen :( Facebook won't let me swap it out for the original image.

This one is so worth sharing! One place I never save money is on hoof care...even retirees need to be done every 6-8 weeks. We generally split the difference and do them at 7 weeks. I'm convinced that bad shoeing and trimming cause more lameness than any other single factor. If you are experiencing tendon and ligament issues, look at the feet first and see what might be creating that.

It's crazy how often the terrible feet are in super high dollar barns. A trainer I know surreptitiously took a series of photos of horrible feet she saw at a jumper show one day. It was utterly mindblowing. 6 figure horses with horrible feet. Contracted heels, long toes, you name it. Don't even get me started on what a lot of the reining people think are acceptable feet, yikes. The Arabian show horse people, the Saddlebred people, so many horrible columnar looking unhealthy feet everywhere. Polo, you just have a lot of cheapskates using the $80 a full set guy and it sure looks like it. 4 different feet on half the horses I get in here. (See, some of you wanted me to pick on other disciplines than dressage - no problem, I can do that all day!) You cannot rely upon the horse professionals around you to make the right decisions regarding your horse's feet. You REALLY need to learn how to tell good from bad, yourself, if you want to have a sound horse you can ride.

10/31/2024

You can't scroll two inches on Facebook this time of year without seeing posts arguing about people's rights. The right to own guns, the right to free speech, the right to abortion - debates about rights are everywhere. I wonder how often people stop and think about what it would be like to be an animal and have no rights at all?

My friend Jessica posted this picture of her 23 year old Thoroughbred mare. I met that mare at an auction in Enumclaw, Washington. That auction was run by a nasty old man who welcomed the kill buyers to do their business there and even helped them out, ignoring legitimate buyers and selling horses for cheap to his kill buyer friends. Social media being what it is, people actually mourned his death. I did a lot of unfriending right around that time!

But I digress. This was back in 2007, I think, maybe early 2008. I raised my number to bid on this mare and that POS wouldn't even look at me. He put his hammer down almost as soon as he started talking and sold her to Ole Olson, a well known dealer and kill buyer who was running his pen in Moses Lake, about four hours away.

Anyway, I went home and thought about that mare and the end result was we decided to go out to Moses Lake and buy her off of Ole in the morning. I think she cost $400. The scams weren't scamming on a wide scale back then so you could buy horses for their actual meat price.

The mare was Futloosanfancyfree, a race winner. She was perfectly sound and had the heart of a Quarter Horse, with no desire to run fast EVER again. I talked Jessica into adopting her and she's had her ever since. Her kids can ride this mare. This mare is a saint.

The thing I want you to think about is how this super well behaved, angelic, sound, perfect Thoroughbred mare was almost dead at age 6 through no fault of her own. I've had tough times in my life, and I bet you have too. Many of us have either been really broke, or at risk from some kind of violent person, or so sick we couldn't help ourselves. But no matter how awful things were, we had some options. We could open our mouths and ask for help. We could take action to change our circumstances, like going out and applying to every menial job on earth to make a few bucks or finding the courage within ourselves to pack up everything and run from an abuser or tell a teacher what was going on at home or finally ask for help with an addiction that was destroying us. Look at those kids who were being tortured and imprisoned by their parents in Orange County - one finally got the courage to crawl out a window and run and beg someone for help and it saved her whole family. Now, does everybody get help? Does everybody escape? Of course not. But the fact remains that we have a *chance* and some agency in the most dire situations. There's a girl who got away from Ted Bundy and there are children who jumped out windows to get away from abusive parents and survived.

That mare, in that kill pen, could do nothing. Nothing at all. Imagine if the only hope you had of survival was the right person seeing you and deciding to intervene? Otherwise you die in a horrific manner akin to being cornered in an alley by a serial killer, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

I think about this stuff a lot.

I think about all the ones who fall through the cracks and how that happens and how we can stop it before it happens.

Maybe it'll help if we all just think about this stuff more...think about what it would be like to have no choices, no rights in life, no ability on your own to escape a bad situation or your imminent murder. To just be at the mercy of whatever a human decides is going to happen to you.

I think it's a scarier thought than any horror story, myself.

10/29/2024

Chicky is pending adoption to one of her old polo grooms, Mila, who absolutely loves her and just wants her as a pleasure horse and for her daughter to ride when she gets big enough!

10/29/2024

Monica rode Gringa again and she was much sounder with shoes on. Total ANGEL in the cold wind, too! This mare is going to make a lovely partner for someone who doesn't want to ride hard. Videos in comments, Facebook is freezing when I try to add them to this post.

10/28/2024

Happy Halloween from horse Tank and his kid Addie! We had a Halloween themed gymkhana near here this weekend and everybody got to dress up and have fun.

(This is also today's reminder that Los Angeles is a big place and isn't just the hot mess you see on TV, ha ha)

10/27/2024

I mean it's just a theory but I'm pretty sure these horses loathe these riders and their training methods?

Also the 2nd one is lame af.

How is this the "highest level" of any sport? What a s**t show. Embarrassing and awful to watch. I just want to rescue these poor horses and get them some vet and massage and turn them out to play with friends. :(

It has been a busy weekend at the Dressage CDI In France and we have the dressage disaster highlights for you here at Dressage Hub. Patrik Kittel and Bonamou...

10/27/2024

Heaven was very happy to be home after a week up at the vet hospital where we did an intensive lameness exam with many x rays. It turns out at this point her knees aren't even the big problem anymore - instead, it's a foot with some coffin bone deterioration that was never investigated before because everybody already knew her knees were trashed when we got her. So she got some Legend and shoes and pads and came home.

Heaven is the SWEETEST mare, and our youngest resident at age 7. She was unfortunately sold to someone in polo without her racing injuries being disclosed, and landed with us three years ago. (Sorry about the sweat marks, they got stuck behind an accident coming home and it was in the 80s!)

10/25/2024

Chicky went off to training this week to learn how to do things that aren't polo, and we also already have an approved adopter for her. What we don't have is an approved boarding situation for her, so I'm going to throw this out here to see if anybody can help!

Here's what we need. A private farm would be great! Mare is absolutely lovely, total bottom of the pecking order so she'd be nice company for other horses like that. You could trust this mare with a blind horse - she literally does not have a mean bone or know how to pin her ears. Perfect manners, no vices.

1. Either 24/7 turnout or all day turnout with large pipe corral at night. No solid walled stalls - mare is good at getting cast.

2. Right now she's eating Alfalfa and Teff but Alfalfa and any other grass (other than Bermuda) would work, and she's not a super easy keeper so Alfalfa alone would probably be fine too. At least 4 flakes a day.

3. Blanketing/unblanketing, fly mask on/fly mask off.

4. Arena to ride in, I'm sure trail access would be a big plus.

5. Supplements fed 1x/day.

6. Real water troughs/barrels and not automatics are a huge plus.

7. Close as possible to Fountain Valley, CA (please use Google and look before making suggestions.) Her adopter has a young baby and no time to drive long distances to see the horse.

I doubt we will find this in a boarding facility but I bet someone out there has a private property and boards a horse or two for someone who is responsible and respectful, which I feel confident describes this adopter. Let me know if you can help!