Horse Introduction

The Story of Twiggs

While we were in college, I boarded Ronan at a barn in Birmingham, AL called Jackson Stables. It was a wonderful barn, friendly people, and AWESOME mountain trail riding. A, the barn manager at the time, convinced the owner to buy several TWHs, most still on pads and just out of the show ring. The first one they brought home was Twiggs. She had been previously rescued twice by A so she held a special place with her. Twiggs was 16 hh (without pads), extremely lean to the point of being slightly underweight. She was black with only a few white hairs on her back, obviously from some bad tack fit some time back. She also had some white hairs on her lower legs. The back of her pasterns were scarred from soring and if you ran your hand down any part of her leg, you could feel scars, bumps, and lumps from years of abuse.

She was taken off the pads about a week after arriving at Jackson Stables and was given turnout, which she was NOT use to, in the large arena. She soon settled down and somehow, became Steven's trail riding mount. He rode her all winter and spring. Once we decided to leave for TX, he approached A and the owner of the barn (they owned Twiggs together) about buying her. A agreed to sell only to Steven because she knew Twiggs would be well taken care of. When we moved to Dallas, we began pouring high quality feed to Twiggs. She put on weight nicely and is now in perfect condition. Her feet are in much better shape as well. Since she was on pads for most of her young life, her feet have been built up so much. She almost looked like she was walking on stacks, with heels much too high, toes long, and so much frog that we were constantly treating thrush. Since pulling her shoes and trimming her with a Natural Balance trim, she has improved dramatically. We are planning to breed her this Spring.

I can't imagine what Twiggs has been through in her life. She most likely was a repeated victim of soring and stewarding. However, she will never have to indure anything remotely close to that now! She is in the snow picture here.