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BY ROYAL M. HOPPER III
Times Correspondent | Sunday, June 18, 2006 | (No comments posted.)
DEMOTTE | For 30 years, Tops, a registered appaloosa horse, was a family pet. He was pampered, loved and ridden with care, which is exactly why Tops was a featured horse at Saturday's Horse Rescue adoption in DeMotte.
The owner's husband has been diagnosed with cancer, and she simply can't care for her beloved pet the way she used to.
"She had known the horse all her life and wanted to make sure he would be taken care of by the people who adopted him," said Jenn Harrison, an Indiana Horse Rescue volunteer at Saturday's event.
The organization was founded with the purpose of adopting horses with no place to go and saving them from the slaughterhouse. Some of the horses up for adoption have been seized by authorities because of abuse, but many, like Tops, are brought in by loving owners who cannot provide necessary care anymore because of illness, divorce or financial difficulties.
"Eighty-five to 90 percent of the horses we get are brought in by the owners," said Kathryn Caldwell of Indiana Horse Rescue.
Amos, a mischievous 6-year-old Clydesdale, was one of the horses up for adoption Saturday along with the other Clydesdales that were presented as a team.
Micky and Tiffany Insalaco, owners of the MT Acres ranch, said they became involved in the Indiana Horse Rescue when they adopted four horses themselves. They were impressed by the organization's efforts to care for the horses they adopted.
Tiffany Insalaco, a former competition rider, adopted her horses because she wanted to ride again, Micky Insalaco said.
"I needed one to ride with her," Micky Insalaco said.
Seven-year-old Jenny Quinn and her family were among the people who attended Saturday shopping for a horse. They had their eye on a mare named "Boogie," an Arabian and thoroughbred mix that was "green broke," meaning she had trained to take a rider but still needed work before she was ready to be a good saddle horse, Harrison said.
Jenny loves to ride horses like her older sister. The family already has one horse, but mother Janet Quinn says both girls like to ride horses. A horse requires a great deal of care, and owning horses will teach her girls responsibility and that sometimes the needs of others must come first. If you want to ride the horse you have to take care of it, she said.
Older, calmer horses are better for children, but Mike McCoy, Janet Quinn's fiance and a horse enthusiast since he was 5, prefers break horses.
Break horses tend to be fast. spirited horses that will slide for yards when they stop, spin in random directions and walk backwards almost at a gallop.
Fifteen horses were up for adoption Saturday and four of them already had found homes just an hour after the event began.
Indiana Horse Rescue can be reached at (765) 659-5209. The canine division can be reached at (765) 468-3681 and the feline division at (219) 759-2285. The exotic division can be reached at (269) 684-3578.
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