Ricky’s Story:
We were given Ricky one rainy night June night back in 2021. A young girl offered him to us for free and we decided to give him a home. We exchanged addresses and I told her that we would pick him up the next morning.
An hour later a horse was being ridden up our driveway by a young girl. We couldn’t believe it. She rode Ricky two miles to our house in the rain at 10pm. We were in shock. We led her and Ricky to the barn to get out of the rain. When she jumped off of Ricky, we wanted to cry.
What we saw was an extremely skinny horse with sores on his back. The poor thing was skinny, hungry, and cold. Scott and I were not expecting to see a skinny horse. We were led to believe that he was fat and very healthy. That definitely was not the case.
As quickly as we could, we sent that girl and her mother home without Ricky. We dried Ricky off, gave him a warm clean stall, and alfalfa hay. He ate that alfalfa like a kid eats their Easter candy. While he was eating, I got my mind in gear to come up with a feeding plan for Ricky.
In the almost two years we have been working very hard in getting weight back on Ricky. With him being a 26yr old Standardbred with a high metabolism it’s been very challenging.
Honestly, we didn’t expect him to live much longer after we got him. But Ricky is a very strong-willed horse. He loves to eat, especially his alfalfa hay. Ricky still has a way to go to get back to good weight and we are going to continue to give him our everything. Ricky is the reason we decided to start a senior horse nonprofit rescue that we named Ricky’s Ranch.
We quickly discovered that there are plenty of senior horses out there that need and deserve care and love. Many of them are of no more good use, because they no longer make money for the owners. So, they end up being forgotten about, under fed, malnourished, and even worse. Those senior horses deserve the best since they gave us humans their best in return. It is our goal, with your help, to give a loving home to these beautiful, majestic senior horses, who deserve to live out their golden years grazing a pasture, and enjoying the best feed and hay.
You can see in these before and after pic, his weight gain over the last couple of years. He is really filling out.
Ricky Update:
February, 2024, we said our Good-bye’s to Ricky. He was just in too much pain from the arthritis, from having been a race horse for so long. We are content knowing that we gave him the best and most cared for years at the end of his live.
We will always miss you, Ricky. But your legacy will live on forever with the Senior Ranch in your name!
