Our few new rescues these past week turned into six new members of Rosemary Farm (plus a guest who we helped save from slaughter!). It’s been a traumatic time getting them all home from the kill pens in Pa. By far the sickest horse to date has been the handsome and mysterious hafflinger Scooter.

Scooter finally arrived with his teammate, Star, with a full blown case of strangles. This is serious but I quickly learned not as serious as his major mistrust of humans. It’s still a mystery what happened to him or how ‘deep’ it is, but I know that underneath is a friendly and honorable horse. I know this not from osmosis, but from some amazing information shared by his original breeder. This generous woman is no longer able to breed, but when she did, she did so with thought for temperment and beauty both. When she heard that Scooter was in a kill pen, she put up most of his bail, which allowed me to fundraise for Star and keep them together. Soon after, she sent me an email that I want to share here. It is a priceless gift. If I only had this kind of information on all of the rescues. Thank you Kathi, for being the kind of breeder that we all wish to know. I hope to take good care of your boy.

“Dear Dawn, My name is Kathi R. I own T. W. Farm in C., PA. I sponsored “Mean Motor Scooter, TWF” after being contacted by Lisa from “Another Chance 4 Horses”. I am his breeder. I understand that he and his partner “Lite Star Dake” will be coming to live with you and I wanted to thank you for giving him and his buddy a home. I couldn’t stand the thought of him going to slaughter. I had to give up breeding and showing five years ago because I have become disabled. I miss it, but I can also say that I saw the “signs” and felt it was a good time to stop breeding anyway because of the down turn in the economy and horse market. I was always so careful about whom I sold my horses to, it’s scary that one of them could still wind up in a situation like “Scooter” did. In case you wanted to know something about him for yourself or if you were going to adopt him out, His mom, “Luwina” was my first broodmare. I bought her in 1990. She was well broke to ride and drive in pleasure or work harness and was quiet, gentle and steady as a rock. Although she wasn’t used as a work horse, she did a few things around the farm now and then like help me harrow the garden or spread lime with a partner. I had a sleigh and she seemed to love to go for sleigh rides when it snowed. She was the best trail horse I ever rode.

She was a great mom and she seemed to love her filly foals, but her stud foals were ornary and mischevious. I had a special foaling field for my mares and the night they foaled, I kept an eye on them from a distance then brought them into a box stall for the first night after the baby was up. Whenever she had a stud, she would just stand there and look exasperated like “here we go again”. “Scooter’ was a little Dennis the Menace. He was always pulling on his mom’s tail, taking her halter off her head or stealing milk from the other broodmares. He would sneak up behind them when they were grazing and he could snake his way around their rear end and twist his neck so that he could get a little drink before she discovered he wasn’t her foal. No one believed me until one day my vet witnessed it. That’s how he got his name. I remembered this song from when I was in my twenties. I can’t remember the band or the name of the song, but there was a line in it that said “I’m a mean motor scooter and a bad go getter”. I’d see him run from a standing start and kick up dirt like he was spinning his wheels, and that song would come to mind. I believed he was not yet a yearling when I sold him, but no older.

His mom later developed a back problem that left her unable to move her tail back and forth, and sometimes she would have trouble getting up from lying down. I retired her from breeding and she had her own small pasture next to the other horses’ field so she could still be with them and she did well with her medication for quite some time, but one day she decided she was tired and didn’t want to get up. She’d lay there and munch her hay, but when my boyfriend and I tried to lift her with a big belt and his high lift, she would seem to go into a trance and not even try to stand. When we let her back down, she’d resume munching her hay. After three tries, I knew she was telling me she was done and ready to go. I was still working as a vet tech and I had one of my vet friends come out. I sat down at her head and when Dr. Becky put the catheter in her vein, she laid over and put her head in my lap and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and I let her go to heaven. She’s buried in a place of honor by the stable next to my wonderful stallion that I lost a year ago.

Scooter’s dad is McIntire 4DA whom I sold to my neighbor many years ago when I put my new stallion into service. He is getting up in years, but he was gorgeous. After I sold him, they had me show him for them at the county fair and every year, he won the Grand Championship. He is a big baby. They stopped showing him a couple years ago. I have photos of Scooter’s mom and dad if you would like them. When I became disabled, I sold all of my young broodmares to one local family. They were an answer to my prayers as it broke my heart to sell them. I had bred them all, starting with their grand mothers and great grand mothers. They were like my kids, but I didn’t want them to waste away in the field. I have my three old broodmares and two older geldings and we live in happy retirement together with two rescued cats, one dog and 16 chickens. My boyfriend calls my farm “The Country Club”.

I hope I didn’t bore you, but I always wanted to know as much about a horse as I could when I bought them. Even though I know little of Scooter after he left here, atleast you know the background from which he came. Please let me know when he arrives and how he does.”

Scooter recovering at Rosemary Farm; March 27, 2010