![]() In the end, their grade is determined by the amount of work they put into improving the horse’s chances of success in a new home. Students can also help a potential adopter decide whether the match is a good one. They create a training plan with goals for that individual, and they evaluate the horse’s strengths and weaknesses along the way. Instead, McGarity focuses on the students’ approach to their project horse. Some won’t even be ready for adoption by that point, in which case they can stay. Not all horses will meet the same goals, so there’s no test of skills at the end of the semester. The variability of the horses in the program makes it difficult to develop a curriculum for the class, McGarity admits. Others want to keep their feet firmly on the ground but are happy to help prepare a horse for a therapy career.ĬSU student Liv is shown here with Laverne, a 12-year-old pinto mare who will be adopted out this semester. Some come with showing or training experience and are ready for a mounted challenge. McGarity also tries to tailor the horses to the students entering the class each semester. ![]() Some horses require more time, while others arrive with skills and can go right to work under saddle and progress to starting over poles, trail riding or learning basic rope work. Then, we all start out on the same page when we start them in the round pen with basic skills like giving to pressure, desensitization and saddling.”įrom there, students branch off in different directions depending on their horse. There are a few introductory lectures to lay out the structure of the semester and review basic knowledge and expectations. “We all start at the same spot and evaluate horses’ body condition, basic ground manners, behaviors, etc. “The organization of the class through the semester looks a lot like a tree,” said McGarity. It can take time, skills and some vision before a horse is ready for a long-term match.ĬSU student and aspiring photojournalist Forrest Czarnecki has helped The Right Horse program for years and is shown here with Boondock, a 15-year-old Quarter Horse adopted out through the program. Pairing horses in transition-McGarity says they no longer call them “unwanted horses” because “someone somewhere does want these horses”-with therapy or lesson programs seems like a natural solution, but it’s not as simple as sending a trailer over to the local rescue. We’re seeing a decrease in the availability of appropriate horses for lesson programs.” Now in 2019, all of those horses that would have been born at about that time would be now entering the age that’s right for lesson horses. “With that recession, people stopped breeding their horses as much. “If you rewind to 2008, we had that really big recession,” said McGarity. Barns that specialize in lesson programs are also struggling to keep their stables full. Equine-assisted therapies have become more popular, and these services are estimated to be growing at 300 percent per year. The first is that about 200,000 horses end up homeless each year, whether they enter a rescue, go up for auction or enter the slaughter pipeline.Īt the same time, there’s a growing potential outlet for some of these horses. Kylie McGarity, a CSU graduate research assistant and student coordinator for The Right Horse program, was struck by two statistics during her studies. ![]() In CSU’s The Right Horse program, equine science students work with horses sourced from rescues and prepare these animals for their next career.
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