This page was last updated: March 24, 2011
Horse
  Savvy
      Ranch

Cindy Schleuss, Owner
Photo by Julie Colt
Joy
Ati
and
Sisterhood to the end
So far this has been an unusual year for tragic events.  I read in the paper that two teenagers are killed, both under the influence of alcohol.  One killed by his quad flipping on him and the other drowning.  A very dear gentleman client of mine informed me that he had to put his 4 year old reining horse to sleep.  Then I read about Teddy O'Connor.  Not fair.  This year has been a year of, not fair.  Well, this story goes along with the rest, not fair.

On March 21, 2008  at approximately 12:15am, for some unknown reason the horses at my personal house bolt thru the fence and get out onto Bodega Ave.  This was the beginning of the end.

Ati first arrived at Horse Savvy Ranch a bit on the wild side.  Her owner, a young 20 year old at the time, Stephanie Box, rode her like a bronc star.  I can not recall anymore how many years Stephanie rode Ati before the decision to retire her, I know it was at least a few.

Ati was an ex-racehorse, a sprinter.  Unfortunately her time at the race track left her with damaged lumbar vertebra.  Stephanie tried her best to rehabilitate Ati, we both did.  We were at the time just embarking on the path of Muscle Reconstruction Therapy.

As time went on Stephanie let go of the idea of making an event horse out of Ati and found that she made one great trail horse.

Then the day came when I watched Ati falling sideways into the fence.  It appeared that the calcification of the lumbar vertebra had hit a nerve that disconnected Ati's ability to control her hind end.  Stephanie and I worked our magic as best we could and luckily it paid off.  Even though Ati was deemed unsafe to ride, she was ok.   Ati was then retired to my pasture.  At the time we did not know for how long because she could at any time loose the ability to control her hind end.  She appeared to have fallen at least two times in the pasture, but to the end she never lost the ability to buck, leap 3 feet off the ground, bolt and run.
Photo by Julie Colt
ATI
JOY
I will never forget the day I met Joy.  When she came out of the trailer and crabbed walked down to the barn I thought to myself, "what on earth happened to this poor horse".  Joy, if she could be rehabilitated, was to become a broodmare.  The concern was the already very low and weak back, not to mention the crooked sacrum.  She had been used as a fox hunter and it appeared that she had reared and fallen backward onto an object that damaged part of her hamstring as well as her illium on the left hind.

Now Joy was not the easiest patient to work with.  She had a bit of a temper and made it very clear that she was done with people.  If ever I met a horse that lived the words "stupid humans", it was Joy.  What made it worse was the fact that Stephanie and I were in the beginning phase of learning MRT and what influences it had on the body.  This meant that our technique and our timing was not always "on the money".  Joy would let us know we got it "wrong" by slamming us into the walls or kicking at us.  Lets just say that Stephanie and I got real good at running backwards fast. 

In three months we had a sound rideable horse.  Now was the time to see if we could get her back strong so that she could hold a foal.  As we continued our program the current owner ran out of money. So Stephanie, out of the goodness of her heart, bought Joy and continued her therapy.  It wasn't until her lateral collateral ligament on her left front collapsed that she called it quits and retired Joy to be with Ati.


For years the mares lived in the pasture just being horses.  Every spring I would move the herd to the front pastures so that the back 8 acres could grow to be cut for hay.  Then every year I would move them back.  Not this year.  On March 21, 2008,  a full moon in the sky, something startled the horses (three of them at the time) bad enough to cause them to bolt thru the fence out onto Bodega Ave.   It happened around 12:15 in the morning.  Ironically, even though they broke thru the fence in front of the house, we, nor our dogs, heard a thing.  Ironically, Andrea Krout, Jolynn Cunningham (experienced horse woman), and their boyfriends just happened to be driving west bound on Bodega.   They had the misfortune to witness what came next.  The full moon made it easy for Andrea, who was driving, to see the horses heading toward her in the road.  As she slowed to pull over so that they could herd the horses out of the road a van traveling eastbound drove through and struck Joy, then Ati, killing them both.  Ironically, Freckles, my fathers gelding, was unharmed.  Why this happened, none of us will ever understand.  Why only Stephanie's horses?  We believe that the 2 mares had a pact that they would leave this earth together and they did.

Freckles is back in the pasture with his long time companion Midnight and two new horses.  The loss of Joy and Ati will stay with us forever, and life goes on.
Photo by Julie Colt
Photo by Julie Colt