Freedom

Freedoms story in the words of his rescuer Meaghan

THE BEGINNING ..... The Day we met Freedom ...

He was standing on the street in a pool of urine .. bleeding knees and sores and blood pouring through his coat .... someone pulled hard on his bit and the owner held up a whip .. he was dragging around a heavy carriage that would of had tourists riding in it. ... even though he was a very small horse ...

I could just tell he had had so much abuse and pain it was as if he didn't even notice it anymore.

THE LONG LONG WALK

When we first saw Freedom standing in the street .. his head was low and he was super depressed ...

I was walking with a friend who had been recently ill ... and I asked her to leave me in the street ... I didn't want to stress her ....

"I'm about to make a scene .. " I said .. .

She left and I began to talk to Freedom's owner, all the Kelish Drivers standing around me .. I asked them to give this poor horse a holiday!!!

They just asked me to buy it food or give them money. I knew what that meant .. I had been through it before .. and this horse needed much more than a pile of food ...

they threw some green in front of Freedom and he docilely moved his head down to eat ...

I felt like he was in a stupor. He hardly reacted to the noise of cars whirling around him or me screaming at the Kalish ...

"ENOUGH" ... so I told the Kalish I wanted to rent the horse for 24 hours .... they yelled super high prices at me ... I got very angry and threw some money on the ground ...

There was one guy there who said he wanted to help me and I asked him if he would walk Freedom and me to the local Animal Hospital ... it is very far he said .. about 5 kms .... but I didn't know what else to do .... I had to get Freedom out of there ..

So we began our long long long walk ... I was carrying a computer bag, a bag of shoes and a handbag .... I led Freedom because the guy handled him in a very rough way.. I didn't want Freedom to be handled in a cruel way anymore!!! .

. We walked and walked and walked ...

. I kept stopping to give Freedom a break .. we had to climb over breaks in the road and it was

very painful for him with his knees .. we had to stop so I could take a break from carrying my bags ..

People stared and ran in the street to look at the strange sight of a European woman carrying many bags leading a delabitated horse through the streets ...

after 45 minutes we were both tired ...

I asked the guy if we could put Freedom in a stable in the city for the night so we could figure it out in the morning ... he led me to his own family stable .. it was filthy but quiet and empty.

.

I put Freedom inside, took off his halter and gave the guy money and he raced away on a motorbike to get food for Freedom and we sat waiting for 30 minutes ...

It was great to have him at least alone in this stable .. away from the street ... it was quiet ... I hugged Freedom and told him that I loved him he leaned against my side and closed his eyes .. his eyes stayed shut for a really long time ...

When the guy returned I fed Freedom and took photos and the room filled up with a million orbs ...... I took that photo about 4 times to check and every time the room was swimming with lights, round lights, and movement.

FREEDOM THE HORSE RIDES TO FREEDOM!!!

. The morning after finding Freedom was hard .... I did not know what would be happening to him...

I had stayed awake the night before to 3am trying to raise money for him .... money was pouring in .. I had enough to.buy him, move him and keep him for a month ...

he was still in a stable in the middle of the city on his own .. I had left money with the stable guy .. I texted him ... "Did Freedom have breakfast?" "Is he still there?"

Did his cruel owner come in the middle of the night and take him away?????

I spent the next few hours by the phone .. talking to people .. many rescuers told me to give him back to the owner ..

The owner was asking for more money and it was best to seem uninterested in the horse to bring the price down.

Many more future rescue horses were at stake ... if the price for saving them got too high.

So I waited. And Waited and waited ...

Until about 3pm I got the call ..

FREEDOM HAD BEEN RESCUED !!!!!

. A price agreed.

. He was on a truck on his way out of the city .. .across the River Nile and to the Green Beautiful Banks of West Bank Countryside.

It was SUCH a joy to find him at the farm walking on the natural dirt ground .. he was released into a paddock to walk around .. it was late at night ... but it was such a pleasure to see him in the clean night air, on west bank luxor - farm country .. away from the dirty noisy streets he had lived in pulling heavy carriages for most of his young life. ..

the First Day of Freedom and Lesley from the Farm set about the difficult task of de-shoeing Freedom.

he had been shoed very badly with nails being bashed into his hooves right through the top of his hooves and in many crazy directions ... part of his hoof had been completely filed down and his back legs were slightly bowed from having to pull heavy carriages with such bad feet at such a young age ...

he had a swelling in one of his knees that we are still trying to get down if he will ever be able to walk normally ...

Lesley worked TIRELESSLY to de shoe Freedom.

it was a hard job as the nails were so deep but she was so determined to get those nails out ..

it was when we first discovered what a good boy Freedom is .. despite having to pull on his feet to get the old nails out he happily just stood there chewing away and did not kick or nip once ...

Was SUCH A HAPPY SIGHT to lead him after out into the paddock and watch him walking around with no shoes on in the soft dirt of the paddock Free and Clear !!!

Happy Pony ... this has been his life for 3 months now .. living in Nature away from screaming city streets ..

you can see he is still scarred from his previous life .. it will take a LONG time for him to heal ..

but he is a Happy Pony Now.

Freedom has been SADDLED UP for the first time so that he can begin training with Leslie

and really start to improve his muscle tone and grow strong

He is still SUCH a ham and was relaxed and proud in his new baby blue saddle gear .... we were worried he would not like it .. Quite unusual for a first time .. a stallion and a traumatized boy