Ex Racehorse and beloved lesson horse needs urgent medical help!

Product Description

Hi, our names are Troy and Wolf, and we are the trainers, teachers, stall cleaners, and evereything inbetween for Golden Owl Riding School. Our horseback riding school is focused on equity, acess, and building relationships between people and animals through natural horsemanship. We started this school because, as a part of both the people of color community, neurodivergent community, and the LGBTQIA+ community, we felt there weren’t many safe spaces for us to work and live with horses. We also recognized the massive economical strain horseback riding lessons can have on people in our local community, and wanted a way to create more equitable acess for as many people as possible. We have seen first hand how bonding with an animal affects people, and offers healing, so it was important to us to have the biggest positive impact possible. We further had the goal of creating a place that castaway horses could have a second chance at a life of kindness. Rescuing was (and continues to be) integral to our plan. To date we have rescued and rehabbed (or are actively rehabbing) 7 of the 10 horses that are in our program. It was all still a dream until Toast (Alaska Trip) walked into our lives. Toast ( is an 18 year old registered Thoroughbred, and raced in her younger years. Her story is a long and sad one- after doing reasonably well as a racer she had four babies who also raced. She sat for a few years, then was purchased by our apprentice, Becca, to barrel race. They had a good time racing together, but Toast (then named Trip) wasn’t getting along with Becca’s other horses, so Becca sold her to somebody she thought was a friend and a good, safe home. Fast forward several months, and the friend asked Becca to come help trim Toast’s feet. Becca noted that Toast had lost some weight, but was not concerned as she had been on the heftier side when she was purchased. Fast forward a few more months, and the request came again to help with a trim. Becca headed out to trim up Toast’s feet, and found her in shockingly thin condition. Horses are given a body score of 1-9, with 1 being skin and bones, and 9 being morbidly obese. Toast was between a 1 and a 2. Becca supported Toast’s owner in starting the refeeding process and in gaining education around nutrition, but it became a financial strain and the decision was made to rehome Toast. That is where Golden Owl Riding School comes into the story. We had been looking for a beginner safe horse, something with a lot of training in its background, and when we found Toast’s ad on craigslist, we knew we had to go see her. When we arrived, it became clear that her owner had not been totally honest with us, as she was in rough condition.