The Magnificent Seven (Lawrence, Silver, Blossom, April, Sadie, Elsa and Elton)
Rescued: April 17, 2018
The second biggest rescue in the centre’s nine-year history happened in April 2018, when Dolores police called co-founders Sue and Rod Weeding to an awful situation: seven equines (four horses and three ponies) whose owners couldn’t feed them anymore were about to be evicted from the land they were renting.
Neighbours had been throwing some food to the skinny equines, but it wasn’t enough. With eviction pending, the desperate owners had considered selling the herd to illegal horsemeat traders.
The owners had also considered putting the animals to sleep. But, says Sue, “it would have cost well over €2,000 to euthanase seven horses in Spain. This family couldn’t afford it. We were these horses only hope”.
The equine tribe – a mother, her daughter and son, an auntie and three minis (two mares and a colt) – were malnourished and dehydrated. The stallion’s hoofs were also in very poor condition.
The five mares could be turned out shortly after the rescue but Lawrence and Elton, the two stallions, needed to be castrated before they could join the herd.
It wasn’t possible to keep Lawrence here because being shut away in a stable would have driven him mad, so he stayed with our vet, Dorothea, for a couple of weeks to gain enough strength to be safely castrated. Unfortunately, when he came back, his herd didn’t consider him a part of the group anymore.
In October 2020, Lawrence the horse found a new home in Switzerland where he is living his best life with Jasmin, a great supporter of the rescue centre. Unfortunately, we lost Blossom in August 2019 due to a leg fracture. Sadie, Elsa, and Elton are now happy members of the mini herd, and April lives with her auntie Silver and her partner in crime Megan.
