A black Shire stallion has made the journey of a lifetime after being rescued from abuse and neglect to become a champion show horse at the Calgary Stampede.
Last July, Wendy Cristante, a Langley, B.C., Clydesdale breeder, accepted the starving animal found with a group of 20 mares after the RCMP and SPCA confiscated the animals left on a bare pasture near Pemberton, B.C.
“He was on death row and I’m not kidding,” said Cristante, who has made it a mission to save abused horses and find them suitable homes. She has saved about 20 animals in the last seven years and blames the cases on horse ignorance among owners.
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“The reason most horses go unattended or basically starved to death is because (owners) are just uneducated on the feeding programs, especially for these big horses,” she said.
She has a large indoor feedlot system for rebuilding abused horses that keeps them out of the public eye while they recover.
This horse was trying to service the 20 mares that were in equally bad condition. Some had foals at side and all were pregnant. They were also skin and bones. Some of them were rehabilitated and placed in new homes, although a few had to be destroyed.
Renamed Prince Charming, the 14-year-old horse became Cristante’s pet project. It had bones sticking out, severe muscle loss and an unruly temperament developed from a distrust of humans. Cristante began the year-long task of rehabilitation at her Cedar Spring Ranch.
The horse was gelded and sedated to work on a bad set of teeth and feet. Hair loss from malnutrition is still evident in part of the mane, which is slowly growing back.
The first two months of the feeding program consisted of a high roughage diet of mostly wheat straw low in sugar and protein. The animal’s digestive system was in bad condition and the return to proper feed had to be done slowly to avoid a fatal incident of colic.
“We couldn’t get him to have a normal bowel movement until February when he started to turn around,” she said.
“Our nutritionist said it takes a year for their stomach lining to get back to normal.”
As time passed she was able to start training the horse for its first big outing in the Stampede parade where Prince was named the top horse.
Standing 17.3 hands high, Prince gained about 500 pounds and now weighs close to 2,000 lb. Its temperament is calm but in many ways it remains a one woman horse, said Cristante.
Besides breeding horses, she heads the Canadian Clyde Ride Team of America, an all-woman team of show riders who use Clydesdales for western and English riding performances. All the horses on the team have been rehabilitated.
They have performed in California’s Rose Bowl parade and are leaving later this summer for a booking at Disneyland.
