Horse Illustrated Magazine

With the spotlight on the horse overpopulation and need for horse rescue in recent years, many horse lovers want to help out by adopting a horse in need. While there are well trained horses and seasoned campaigners suitable for amateur riders to be found among the horses at many rescue facilities, not all adoptable horses fit that description. Some are horses that have been mishandled or lack any training at all, and for that reason, they need a special type of adopter.

World Horse Welfare (WHW), a charity located in Great Britain, has launched a campaign to help find good homes for these work-in-progress equines. They’ve added a category called “Project Horses and Ponies” to their rehoming program. WHW has Rescue and Rehoming Centres around the country and reports that there are approximately 340 horses awaiting adoption. In order for the charity to be able to take on new urgent cases, some of these horses need to find new homes.

WHW believes that there are plenty of potential adopters out there with the necessary skill to work with some of these more advanced training projects. By shining a light on these horses through the Project Horses and Ponies category, they hope to match the right experienced equestrians up with a potential equine partner for life.

Although not as broad in scope as WHW’s program, there are several initiatives in the U.S. that aim to put rescue horses in the homes of experienced trainers.

The Retired Racehorse Training Project created a 100 Day Thoroughbred Challenge to encourage trainers to work with newly retired racehorses. At the end of the 100 day period, each participating trainer was judged on their progress with their horse.

The Extreme Mustang Makeover and its related programs aim to encourage adoption of American Mustangs. In these events, each participant takes on an unbroke Mustang. They’re given a few months to work with their horse, and then brought back to show off what they’ve learned in a special competition. Each horse must demonstrated some compulsory skills that would be expected of them in their future lives as riding horses, including walk, trot, canter and a lead change. Trainers can then show off how much their equine student has learned in the freestyle, where they might do reining maneuvers, jump, or even go bridleless. After the competition, the now well-trained horses are sold to new homes—as long as their trainers don’t get too attached and outbid the spectators.

For more information on World Horse Welfare’s program, visit worldhorsewelfare.org.

To learn about the 100 Day Thoroughbred Challenge, visit retiredracehorsetraining.org.

Find out more about the Extreme Mustang Makeover at extrememustangmakeover.com.