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February 22th
Beau was one of the horses rescued from the California Horse Protection
nightmare in Hemet. Animal Services seized 70 horses. They were housed temporarily (14
months) with Doug Williams in Lavendar Hills (Nuevo, CA). After holding an auction to sell as
many as possible, Animal Services called in the rescues they approved of and asked us if we could
take the leftovers, of which Beau was one. I let everyone else have their pick, and came when only
six were left. I placed the two sounder ones with local friends, and brought Beau, Jack,
Belle and Lucifer home.
Beau did everything he could to be sure I’d bring him home, despite his
badly damaged left foreleg. He was trembly legged, and Doug advised that until shortly before
I saw him, Beau was spending a lot of time lying down. Although he’s skinny, with his size he’s
really not as bad as some of the others - I suspect he was injured in that group pen and began to
lose weight after that, when he couldn’t compete as successfully for his food. Beau is a
talker - he begins urging me to hurry up with the food as soon as he sees me. The first night that
I brought him his final feed of the night, he was so thrilled at getting the unexpected third meal
that he stopped, hay sticking out of his mouth, stretched his neck over the side of his stall and
"hugged" me, briefly but definitely, before diving back into his feed bin. According to his
microchip information sheet, his name was originally "Tommy" but by the time I found that out, Beau
was his name, and so it remains. He is VERY handsome.
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Beau is almost normal in appearance in this photo, taken , although his new summer coat is
thin. He is a very tall horse, with an inquisitive nature and no fear. Recently, he stopped the
tractor by standing in front of it and refusing to move while he investigated the bucket. He now
lives next to Navigator who has finally been moved into his new house. I call them the "Dueling
Doofuses" because they stand looking at each other, a safe distance from the fenceline, making
faces and laying back their ears, but otherwise making no effort to molest each other. Navigator
made a point of charging the fence line that he used to share with Prophet and lunging at him, so
apparently Beau has
instilled some respect in him. Just a red-headed version of the
Navigator - I’ll be busy this summer keeping these guys exercised. Beau has the typical thin shelly
thoroughbred feet, and has had to have a pair of shoes put on to prevent sore feet and help with
his conformation problems.
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