Valor was removed from the wild because she was half a step from being dead. She was severely run down and anemic. When delivered to us I put her in a pace where she would be easy to bury. I did not expect her to live 12 more hours.
She has. She has lived for about two years with me and is the picture of health. Muscle atrophy in her back never was fully reversed, giving her the look of an old broodmare, though she is less than ten years old. After six days of a modified version of what Parelli calls "Hill Therapy" her back is already strengthening. In five more weeks she will look like a different horse.
Her handling has been absolutely minimal while with us. She had a burst of handling when she was strong enough. She was haltered trained but that was about it--perhaps exposed to a saddle, not sure. Last Sunday she and I went to graduate school. I began her training and hill work. She was terrified of being touched by a person. She was wild as a Corolla could ever be.
Yesterday, after five days of handling for 45 minutes a day, (one day was a rain out)I brought the girls from our teen program down to see how a wild horse's behavior in the round pen differed from one that I had completely gentled and trained. She was learning to fast to be a good teaching model.
She was no longer a wild, terrified horse. We ended a session of about twenty minutes with her alertly cantering around the ring comfortable with her saddle.
Unfortunately there will never be any before and after pictures of her. Internet dishonesty makes such important documentation a very bad idea. Although I would love to have used her as a photographic example of how even a disparately ill horse can fully recover I will not do so. Such pictures are subject to libelous abuse by those that would print them and lie about what they depict.
Who knows, perhaps next year she will be in the Christmas parade along with Baton Rouge, the formerly wild Corolla mare above, and Starfire, Sarah Lin's 1/2 Corolla, 1/4 blm mustang and 1/4 Chincoteague filly.
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