Save A Forgotten Equine

SAFE's ultimate goal would be a world in which all horse owners take responsibility for their animals: responsibility for their care, responsibility for their safety, and responsibility for their passing.

The horses that we take into our rescue program have been failed by the very people who were supposed to have taken care of them. For some of our horses, their owners recognized this failing in time to seek help. Others were not so lucky. It hurts to see a horse brought low by cruelty or neglect; in part, because horses, by nature, ask so little from their caregivers yet give so much. It never ceases to amaze us that a horse, having been so cruelly mistreated by its owners, will nearly always approach us with a willingness to trust.

They say you can judge our society by the way we treat the most helpless among us. If each of us took responsibility for the well being of the animals in our care, even if that means hard work or sacrifice, our world would be a better place. If cruelty and neglect towards animals was something that was not tolerated by any of us, our world would be a better place.

Animal rescue can be disheartening at times, because it seems that no matter how many you save, there is a never-ending stream of others in need of help. At SAFE, as soon as we've placed one horse into a great adoptive home, another horse in desperate need is right there to take its place. Enlarging our capacity to take in more horses would be one way to try to keep up with the need, but that does nothing to help the underlying problem of equine abuse and neglect. So we have to look for other ways to make a change.

1) Increased support for Animal Control agencies.

Animal Control agencies have authority under the law to stop animal cruelty by seizing animals and by prosecuting those who mistreat them. In this region, despite the large numbers of horses owned by citizens, Animal Control agencies do not have their own resources at hand to house and care for horses. SAFE has made it our priority to support local Animal Control whenever we can, in hopes that our assistance will make them more likely to take action in cruelty cases involving horses. Not only can we provide shelter and care to seized or surrendered horses, we can also assist in prosecution by documenting the recovery of the horses in our care, and testifying in court when needed. In the vast majority of these cases, ownership of these horses is signed over to SAFE, giving us the responsibility for finding them new homes. We hope that by partnering with Animal Control agencies, we can help them become more effective in stopping animal cruelty. We also hope that if more people recognize that neglect and cruelty have serious repercussions under the law, perhaps we will see less of it happening.

2) Advocacy, awareness, and education

We must do all we can to shed light on the issue of neglected and abused horses.

SAFE has been rescuing, rehabilitating, retraining, and rehoming neglected horses for 15 years. In that time, we have dealt with hundreds of cases of starvation, abuse, and neglect, both willful and ignorant. We've assisted horse owners facing death, cancer, job loss, property loss, domestic abuse, and other life-shattering situations that prevented them from caring from their animals. We've working alongside animal control agencies and law enforcement to support their ability to stop animal cruelty and bring those guilty of it to justice.

Along the way, we've made mistakes and we've learned from them. We've had our hearts broken, and we've carried on. We've also watched hundreds of horses transformed from broken to beautiful, and celebrated as they started their new lives. We never stop learning, growing, or adding to our experience.

We are also extremely fortunate to have the support and partnership of many excellent equine professionals in our area — veterinarians, farriers, trainers, and suppliers — who believe in our mission and in our ability to make a difference. Together we are extremely capable of restoring horses to health and safety, and starting them down a path in which they will never need to be rescued again.

Since our inception, we have rescued 258 horses facing neglect, abuse, starvation, or slaughter.

223 horses have been successfully adopted into new homes
30 horses have been returned to SAFE by their adopters and rehomed
40 were euthanized or passed away due to effects of neglect or aging
2 horses were returned to their owner by the court
30 horses are currently in our care and awaiting adoption
2 of those are pending adoption

121 horses from Animal Control seizures or surrenders

(statistics current as of 1/27/2022)