King was ready to lie down and die.
The 31-year-old black Arabber horse had lugged a produce cart through Baltimore City streets for years and “was just done with everything” when he arrived at HorseNet Horse Rescue farm in Mount Airy last December, said Elle Williams, the farm?s owner.
King was one of more than 20 horses sold by Arabbers, who for decades have used horses to cart produce, after building code violations caused the city to condemn their Retreat Street stables.
Williams took in 12 of the stocky Arabber horses at her farm. At the entrance, a sign reads, “Take a deep breath. You?re home now.”
The horses came in timid and afraid of human contact, cowering when Williams would reach to turn the lights off in the stable, she said.
The first time she let the horses out in the fields at the 43-acre farm, they refused to return to the stables, she said.
So standing for hours in the freezing rain, Williams coaxed them back with hay and feed.
“We get to deal with all the remnants of everything else that?s happened in their life,” she said.
“The only time they got to get out was when they went in an abandoned parking lot or something. So they never really got to be a horse.”
Most of the 12 horses have physical problems from the years pulling carts on asphalt ? sore backs, torn leg ligaments, busted ribs ? and they still flinch at the “click” of a camera, but several volunteers and about 40 fellow horses are gaining their trust, Williams said.
One Arabber horse, Snowball, has even been taken in by a Westminster family for their 6-year-old boy.
“A lot of people see them as horses with a problem,” Williams said. “I see them as horses with a problem that can be fixed.”
To donate
» What: HorseNet Horse Rescue farm
» Where: Mount Airy and New Windsor
» How: Visit www.horsenethorserescue.org
