| Wednesday, September 19, 2007 Caring for horses a labor of love By Jesse Truesdale Chieftain Weekly News September 19, 2007 Edwardsville — It takes a lot of work to care for horses. Sam Davidson can testify to that. He's been Breeding and showing horses for over 30 years and now has rescue horses on his property in Edwardsville . He buys and takes them in to keep them from being sold to slaughter houses in Mexico and Canada. "I've been around horses all my life," Davidson said to explain the time and money he spends on the animals. "I've raised horses, trained and showed horses all my life" and the heart and trust they have shown me ,I feel it's time I give some back . Davidson moved here in 2005 from Abilene, Texas. His family has owned several cattle and horse breeding operations in Texas for over 120 years. Included in the horses Davidson is caring for Training are a group of wild horses Mustangs , from the Bureau of Land Management, which is in charge of some 31,000 free-ranging wild horses and burros on public lands across the country, including 4,500 in two southeast Kansas facilities with 36,000 acres. Davidson said the BLM rounds up excess horses -- by the agency's estimates there are about 3,000 too many horses for it to care for ideally -- by rounding them up and taking them to adopt them. After a horse fails to be adopted three times, or it reaches 10 years old, "then they sell them to the killers," Davidson said, meaning persons who sell to slaughterhouses. The text of the Wild Free-Roaming horses and Burros Act of 1971 confirms Davidson's statement. Though the act confers protection of "wild free-roaming horses and burros" from "capture, branding, harassment, or death," excess horses that are 10 or more years old and offered unsuccessfully for adoption three times "shall be made available for sale without limitation, including through auction to the highest bidder, at local sale yards or other convenient livestock selling facilities . Among the horses Davidson has now is a recently acquired group of nine, which he's keeping in corrals, in order to keep them segregated from the others for a while . Some of the horses in the corrals have been obviously underfed, Davidson points out, most obviously by the several large thoroughbreds in a corral . As a horses slide up to Davidson as he speaks, some of them sniffing at his jeans front pocket for snacks he carries there. Most aren't like this when they first come here , Davidson said but after a while, he said, they're "like what I call pocket ponies. I have never been around a horse that I couldn't work with and feel easy around and we stand five stallions on the farm and I've never had a bit of trouble from any of them . They learn to trust if you just show them they can ,Davidson said . As might be expected, caring for so many horses is neither cheap nor easy. Owning a breeding farm is how we pay the bills and care for the rescues , Davidson said .It is the way we give back to the horse that has given us and this country so much . A couple of horses at Davidson's are isolated from the others. One, a large mustang named Ahl's Pilgrim, has his own corral visible from the road. Davidson is entered as one of Equine Trainers chosen Nation Wide that will participate in the Extreme Mustang Makeover contest Sept. 22 in Fort Worth Texas . Davidson has had the mustang for a few weeks now and said he's coming along nicely and figures he should be ready to ride this week Davidson said . Another horse is tied to an overhead branch of a tree, to keep him from running on a problem hoof. The horse belongs to a girl who couldn't take care of it, Davidson said. He had been at Mill Valley Feed in Bonner Springs when he heard a little girl lamenting that her horse might have to be destroyed. Davidson said I couldn't let that happen . |
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