Polo Pony Rescue

06/29/2025

Here's something I think ALL the good, traditional rescues should do...

Promote other good, traditional rescues! Promote those who consistently show solid results with rehabs, who keep track of their adopted horses and always offer them a safe haven to come back, and who don't have constant social media drama that gives you flashbacks to the 7th grade.

This is one of the good ones. Yes, we would love your donations but we are also happy when quality rescues like this one get donations, so we are sharing!

Every week we field calls from horse owners asking us to take in their horse. We have heard all the excuses: horse can no longer compete, horse is injured, horse is too old now, getting divorced, moving, can't afford him/her any more, etc. etc. Only one time has the caller offered to financially support the horse while in our care with a sizable donation. As the saying goes "money doesn't grow on trees". If we were out there saying we are at an auction and must raise x amount of dollars to save this poor horse or these abused horses, the money would flow in. And the kicker would be we wouldn't even have to show where these horses ended up! Most end up back at another auction with another "rescue" raising funds to "save" these very same horses. Once people donate they forget that legitimate rescues now must maintain the horse for the rest of its life if the animal cannot be retrained or for any reason must remain a sanctuary horse. All of our horses can not be adopted out due to various reasons. Its not just a question of feed, but all the other expenses incurred to maintain the sanctuary such as farrier costs, vet costs, employee costs, insurance, vehicle maintenance and more. To all horse lovers who want to see their money used to "save" a horse, please consider the sanctuaries. Become a sponsor of a horse. See his/her picture and updates. Visit. Bring carrots! Help with a donation for hay.

Feeling generous??? We hope so as this is today's hay delivery. With 125 horses to feed, this large load unfortunately won't last long. UPF is a 501C3 non profit since 1994 rescuing Thoroughbreds and PMU horses to keep them out of the slaughter pipeline. Our work is 24/7, 365 days a year and we depend on our supporters generosity to assist us in giving all of our horses the best life that they deserve.

06/27/2025

Worth posting every summer, because some of you have not updated your knowledge of horses since 1986, or you share a barn with somebody who hasn't and who keeps yelling at you because if you leave water on a hot horse, it will insulate them and make them hotter, which is of course contrary to everything we know about how water works but they're gonna DIE on that hill regardless...

Also, letting a hot horse drink is *good.* It does not cause colic just because you read that in "Black Beauty" when you were 7 years old in 1978. No, it shouldn't be ice water, but water in the trough or out of the hose on a 90 degree day is 100% fine and does not need to be rationed a few sips at a time or anything like that. Horses, like humans, are at great risk if they do not stay hydrated in the heat.

💧 𝗔𝗧𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗔 1996: 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗗 𝗘𝗤𝗨𝗜𝗡𝗘 𝗦𝗖𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝘆, 30 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗻, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗞 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘂𝗽.

In preparation for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics the equestrian world was braced for a serious welfare threat for horses in addition to its altitude:
🌡️ 34°C heat
💦 60%+ humidity

Thanks to the groundbreaking work of Dr David Marlin the Games went ahead safely. His research revolutionised our understanding of equine thermoregulation - horses cool by the latent heat of evaporation. Sweat scrapers should have become a relic of the past.

💡 The science was clear:
• Soak with water
• Leave it on
• Let airflow do the work

𝗡𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴. 𝗡𝗼 𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝘂𝗴𝘀. 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿, 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗱𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘇𝗲.

Now, 30 years on, the UK is facing the same conditions. This week:
🌡️ Temperatures of 30–32°C
💦 Humidity exceeding 50%—pushing heat stress thresholds

Atlanta 1996 isn’t a historical case study. It’s modern climate reality.

And yet, incredibly—some veterinary practices are still promoting sponging and scraping. If they haven’t updated their advice in 30 years

It’s 2025. The climate has changed, but the science still stands. It’s time the advice caught up.

06/22/2025

I keep trying to be more professional and go a week without posting WTF!!! on the Internet but this is not gonna be that week.

What. Is. Wrong. With. People.

Fortunately this is an A+++ rescue. Send them money, please. They deserve it.

06/19/2025

Here's a little eyeball cleanser after yesterday!

We coordinated the adoption of Ginger directly from polo to her new home in January 2020. Now that new home is unfortunately going through some unexpected and unpleasant life changes and needed her to find a new safe haven. She is on her way to Kim Wineland to be evaluated to see if she is a fit for one of her students, and stopped here for the night.

If you want to put a huge smile on a rescuer's face, return a horse in exactly this condition

06/18/2025

This horse is safe today, but he wasn't earlier this week.

He was being used for lessons, including jumping.

They were planning on using him for horse camp.

Obviously I blame the trainer, but I also blame the parents. If you are going to get your children involved in riding, it is on you to learn at least the BASICS of what a healthy horse looks like. I don't expect you to know what good shoeing is. I do expect you to understand that if a horse looks like a famine victim, your child shouldn't be sitting on it.

Do better.

06/11/2025

This is it, right here. If you desperately want to stop horses from going to slaughter, extend a home when someone you know can't afford their lame or senior horse anymore. That's how you do it. You stop it in its tracks by cutting off the supply of slaughter-bound horses before they get to the kill buyers and the scam rescues that partner with them. You decide to feed some senior or lame horse for all eternity, if you can afford to. Or you donate to a rescue that is doing just that.

Every day, well-meaning people tag us in kill pen posts or send auction bailout fundraisers, asking us to help. And we get it. Everyone wants to save horses. Clearly, we do too, as we’ve dedicated our lives to it.

But several years ago, we made a hard organizational decision: we will not purchase from or otherwise support the kill buyer network.

This is an advocacy post. If it’s not for you, you’re welcome to scroll on.

Here’s the truth: it used to be that rescuers could quietly buy horses at low prices to spare them from slaughter. In rare cases, that's still possible. But the game has changed. Profit-driven brokers figured out they could make more money by selling the *idea* of rescue than the actual horse. The sadder the story, the higher the price.

Today, some horses are deliberately starved or neglected just enough to trigger social media donations. It’s calculated cruelty—for profit.

And no, you don’t have to take our word for it. USDA horse export records are public and searchable. Slaughter numbers have dropped in the last decade, but it’s due to shifting markets—not because of online fundraisers. In fact, the rise in auction buyouts is creating a vicious cycle of exploitation, not breaking it.

The proof is seen in kill buyers and auction houses that are making record profits. Think about that.

Would we stop the drug trade by paying cartels? End puppy mills by buying every puppy? Of course not. You can’t end cruelty by funding it.

We know it’s painful to see broken-down horses online. It feels helpless. But remember—every horse you see posted is just the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands more out of view: in shelters, forgotten fields, long-term government holding.

That’s where true rescue happens. That’s where your support makes the most impact—before the suffering starts.

If you believe America's horses deserve more than being paraded across a screen for a quick dollar, we invite you to stand with us. Because real change takes more than urgency. It takes integrity.

06/09/2025

Today's reminder that if you are selling your admittedly unsound polo pony on Facebook, a dozen people will send me the ad within 24 hours.

You can afford to keep him and retire him. Believe me, I know who's barely scraping by in polo and who's doing fine, and you're in group #2. Why not do the right thing? It is an option, you know.

BTW I sure wish that high profile university full of rich kids would figure out how to pool their resources and pay for some retirement for their polo ponies, too. Your ads trying to ditch them are all over my feed. Pasture board is $350 at a lot of places...you spend more than that going out in a month. Again, how about doing the right thing? Tell everybody they gotta chip in $50 or $100 a month toward care for the old polo ponies. Make it an expected part of participating in a college polo team.

Below is Martona, who will never stay sound for more than a ride or two again, but is greatly enjoying a well-deserved retirement, fully sponsored by her polo owners, Geoff and Grant Palmer.

06/07/2025

We always get asked for our program, so bookmark this post this time so you can find it and share it! Disclaimer: Many other factors can be at play with a thin horse -- you also need to address deworming, tooth floating, keeping the horse warm in winter, pain control if arthritic, ulcers, and possible illness. A blood panel is a VERY good idea when you have a skinny senior horse. The below is just the feeding program.

Scoop = three quart typical plastic scoop that you buy at a feed store

One scoop Timothy or alfalfa pellets (use alfalfa on severely thin horses as in under a BCS 2, and then you can switch to Timothy down the road for maintenance. Timothy from the start if horse is IR, Cushings, kidney issues etc.

1/5 or 1/6 scoop powdered stabilized rice bran

Sprinkle of senior for flavor if the horse is a really pick eater (Triple Crown is low NSC). Mix it well so it encourages them to eat everything.

The supplements we do once a day are: Probios (probiotic), Aloe Vera Juice (keeps all the stomachs happy), flax seed (sand control, seems to have less impaction risk than psyllium), California Trace (for feet), Omega Horseshine (coat) and Simplify and Electrolytes in the summer for flies and helping to handle the heat. If it doesn't have a scoop in it, they get "a splash" - nothing too scientific.

Soak to the consistency of sloppy oatmeal, stir well to make sure everything is wet, let sit til pellets break down, soak again and stir. Most won't eat if there is standing water on the top so it needs to be soaked in but it can be sloppy. The timothy soak much faster which is why we love them.

If your horse "won't" eat soaked food, remove all non soaked food. 🙂 He will not starve in 24 hours and adapting him to soaked food is in his best interest as he ages and loses teeth and grinding surface.

Above recipe 3x a day to start, supplements 1x a day. Really picky eaters or anxious horses, consider doing at least a few weeks of omeprazole, you will see a difference. I get it from abler.com which is exponentially cheaper than the tubes.

Above recipe can be increased as needed. Hay on the side is fine as long as they are cleaning this plate as well, assuming teeth are sufficient to chew hay. Horses who cannot eat hay will probably need to work up to having this mush recipe almost doubled or doubled. When we had a 40+ year old, he used to eat 15 quarts of soaked pellets daily.

Yes it will be heavy! Yes it will hurt your back to move! Get a flat cart or whatever works to move them around without throwing out your back if you too are vintage.

This works. Unless they're in organ failure, cancer, advanced Cushing's etc., this truly does work and it is half the cost of stuffing them with grain which doesn't work in many cases. If you have a horse who "can't" put on weight, try it.

It goes without saying that they need to eat separately if you are trying to put weight on them. It takes time to eat this much, and thin horses aren't going to be able to fight off the competition from other horses! I've found you have to leave some of them in for three hours to get them to finish it all.

My personal experience is that weight gain supplements for horses work every bit as well as weight loss supplements for us 😃 The only thing I'm kind of a believer in is Purina Amplify - I do that with my hardest keepers and I think it helps.

Give it a shot and let me see your before and afters! This mare was 27 when we rehabbed her.