SAISILVER:
Winter 2010/2011. For many weeks, all through the bad weather, we were feeding an abandoned pony mare 17 kms away.
It seems she was turned out on exposed bogland and left to get on with it. The owner of the land complained to the Gardai, the Gardai asked the owner to remove the animal, and the owner relinquished all rights to the pony, saying he didn’t want her and to take her away. The Gardai asked us to collect her and take her into care.......and then the fun started!
Our first approach met with teeth and heels from a very defensive, timid pony, explaining all too well why she wasn’t wanted.
We figured she was more suspicious than actually frightened so over the next four weeks we returned each day with food and kind words until SaiSilver, as we called her, (she is a cobby pony standing around 12.2hh and coloured white with grey patches) began to trust us and would let us stroke and scratch her head, neck and sides. The rear end still swung round if we overstepped her boundaries but finally we chanced taking the horse trailer one day in February and were very surprised when she loaded herself without a bother.
She has settled now with the smaller ponies, Candles, Molly, Cobby, Mini Mo and Jetsie and is becoming daily more friendly. What we hoped was a ‘worm belly’ looked much the same after dosing, even though she expelled a heavy worm burden, so we are hoping against hope there will not be yet another arrival early in the summer!
