A haven for rescued horses
Sherwood Farm is a warm place. Not just because it’s a muggy day in mid-July, but because of the love and care that can be felt there.
The farm on the St. CatharinesPelham border was purchased by Marilyn Lee nine years ago and serves as a riding, training and boarding facility. However, Lee’s love of animals does not let her stop there.
“Because we have animal welfare in our head, not just horses. Although this is our business — my daughter is a coach, trainer, rider — we still are really interested in their welfare,” said Lee.
In addition to horses, mostly exracehorses, the farm is home to a pot bellied pig and a lamb, who as well were rescues.
Lee is clear in pointing out that the farm is not a horse rescue, but rather a home for some horses that have been rescued. For a local rescue, she points to Whispering Hearts in Wainfleet.
On Saturday, Sherwood Farm was host to different kind of rescue.
Bride and groom Amber and Daniel Suba found themselves a horse short for their wedding photos when the horse they had scheduled fell through.
“I used to ride as a young girl and I like the natural beauty and earthiness of the horse,” said Amber Suba. “We did have an opportunity to get pictures taken before and it fell through on us so our family scoured everywhere and we able to find Sherwood Farms, so the rescue is rescuing us on our day.”
Lee didn’t hesitate to help the bride-to-be out when she heard her request.
“She emailed through our website,” said Lee. “She said, ‘I know it’s short notice but we had this horse coming to Lipa Park and it’s backed out. Do you provide this service?’ Well, we don’t have that service but then I thought, why not be nice and so then I started thinking he is the perfect one have. Plus he’s beautiful and he’s a nice size.”
The horse Lee is speaking of is Prodigioso, or Piper as he is called in the barn. A popular and wellloved horse at the barn. So well loved, you may get a nip if you don’t come with a treat to offer. He’s a little used to being spoiled.
Prodigioso is a rescue from Florida, originally found and rehabilitated by South Florida Humane Society. Lee fell in love with him when she saw him on the organization’s Facebook page, and before long he was headed north.
“I saw his picture on Facebook and he reminded me of a little one we had before so we brought him up here,” said Lee. “Just coincidentally it happened to be at the same time that my daughter had another horse that she was starting to train. So she tried him at the same time and he was just as good so they trained alongside of each other and now he’s a show horse. He’s really, really great.”
Lee described Prodigioso’s painful beginning of his new life when he was found abandoned with no food or water in the Everglades.
“He got blinded in his eye when he was in the Everglades and he had a bucket of cement tied around his hind legs so he has burns on the back of his ankles, but the good news is it didn’t affect him in any way in terms of being sound, which means no lameness. So currently, an amateur rider is showing him this year. He is very successful in the show ring.”
The farm fully incorporates its rescue horses into the farm, training the horses to be top-notch show horses. Prodigioso is a great example of that.
“Not that he himself (Prodigioso) is special, but he is representative of so many of them that just get dumped. It’s a huge problem. There are more horses than people can use. Especially in Florida there is a lot that just dump them and they are not gonna make it,” said Lee.
Another horse in their stable with a heart-wrenching story, albeit with a happy ending, is Grace, short for Amazing Grace. The tiny mare has earned her name. She was found in the mud in Florida, abandoned and starved with a group of other horses in similar shape.
“Grace was found a year and a half ago by the same organization that found Piper in Florida,” said Lee. “They thought she was dead. She was found with a group of other starved horses and she was lying the dirt and they had to drag her onto the trailer. They were actually dragging her onto the trailer to be euthanized.”
Grace was not ready to go yet so the rescue group instead spent a year rehabilitating her. Today she is healthy, happy and one of the sweetest horses in the barn.
Further down the isle of stalls is a horse named Future Kings, or Kings
for short. A large Irish horse, he was imported into the United States for racing 15 years ago. Once his racing days were over he was brought to a kill pen in Pennsylvania, where horses are corralled and brought to the slaughter house.
“Thousands and thousands of horses go to slaughter, it’s horrible, said Lee.
“So he was truly rescued, not by us,” she is careful to point out.
“He was pulled out by a rescue group and then they him to go somewhere he could be retrained and shown and so they sent him to us.”
Today Kings is a top-of-the-line show horse.
To date, the farm has helped about 25 horses. The efforts are expensive and the farm relies on an annual fundraising dinner held by people who visit or ride at the farm. If anyone wants to help horses in need, Lee suggests donating to horse rescues such as Whispering Hearts in Wainfleet or Beyond the Roses which is the rescue that helped Kings.