MOULTON, Ala. (AP) - On 50 acres of lush pastures and scenic trails, two Moulton sisters are working together to nurse beaten and abused horses into champions.
For more than 20 years, Twin Lakes Stable in Lawrence County has boarded American Saddlebred horses and Hackney ponies that have won world championship horse shows. But owner Hannah Padgett, 30, and Western-style riding instructor Taylor Padgett, 21, have picked up a side hobby: rehabilitating up to 15 horses a year since 2000.
The sisters board about 30 horses annually for various reasons. Some are trained for horse shows, some for horseback riding lessons, and some are part of the stable’s breeding and consignment program.
The rehabilitated horses may not be the ones winning blue, first-place ribbons, but after a year or two of proper diet and care, they become winners in a different type of competition: one that tests mares’ wills as they struggle with the emotional scarring from years of abuse.
Hannah Padgett’s grandmother bought the then-private farm in 1998. Hannah Padgett took over the farm in 2005, when it became open for public use. She has bonded so well with the rehabilitated horses that she speaks about them as if they were people.
“When someone has been in that condition for so many years, you have to give it a home for life,” Hannah Padgett said. “You feel bad for them and sit there and think, ’How can someone let them get like that?’ “
The horses have been rescued from many places around the country - from the stockyards in her own hometown of Moulton to the auction houses in northern states, Hannah Padgett said. There have been times when horses have been saved off slaughter trucks, marked with slaughter tags hanging from their ears. Hannah Padgett said the horses’ conditions make her heart cringe as they stroll into the stables with hip and back bones showing because they are severely underweight.
One of the more emotionally draining moments for the sisters is to put a horse down because it’s too ill.
“It’s just part of it. You run that risk when you get attached to them,” Hannah Padgett said.
Her favorite and first rescue was Ben, a big white Percheron stallion she found stashed in the back of the Moulton Stockyard. The horse didn’t look like much. His bones were showing, and his hooves were separating, but Hannah Padgett said Ben’s appearance didn’t reflect his caring personality. He let her ride him with no halter and strolled around the facility in a laid-back type of walk.
Ben kept up that same gentle character after Hannah Padgett bought him with her own funds at age 16.
“He had a heart of gold. I thought, ’I can’t let this horse go through this sale.’ When you run a horse through a sale, you run the risk of brokers buying it and you don’t know where it would end up,” Hannah Padgett said.
It costs $300 a month to nurse a horse back to health, the sisters said. First, they have to beat the high bidders at auctions. Once they buy the horse, they have to feed it alfalfa hay three times a day. The hay is packed with protein and fiber, but runs $15 per bale. They also have to give it supplements and high-fat content feed.
Taylor Padgett said she tries her best to make a horse not relive those experiences under her care.
“You just have to take what they do lightly because they are like kids. They learn fast, but they also can backtrack a lot just like a kid,” Taylor Padgett said. “They aren’t going to trust people very much, and those are the worst cases, because it takes them a while to trust people ever again.”
The horses aren’t the only ones who reap the benefits from Twin Lakes. When Taylor Padgett found her favorite horse, Niña, in 2010 at the Moulton Stockyard, it was hard to mend the bond between human and horse at first. During her first years at the stables, Niña would bare her teeth at Taylor Padgett whenever she walked by.
It wasn’t until the Padgett’s grandmother, Jean Gilbert, died from pancreatic cancer five years ago that Niña started to change for her owner’s sake. In the wake of her grandmother’s death, Taylor Padgett said she felt lost because it was her grandmother who kick-started the sisters’ love for horses.
Gilbert was the one who signed Hannah Padgett up for horse riding lessons when she was 3, which led to her first horse show win. Her grandmother was there when she picked up Niña. After her grandmother died, Taylor Padgett started to feel her passion for riding being pulled into the black hole of depression. But Niña wasn’t going to let that happen.
“That’s when Niña came into play, big time,” Taylor Padgett said as she wiped away tears. “I walked straight out (to the stables), and she put her head on my chest. I never had an issue out of her since.”
Taylor Padgett said there are times when she can sense her grandmother’s spirit in Niña. Gilbert was a school teacher; now, the mare works well with kids with special needs. When kids would ride Niña the wrong way, she wouldn’t react by bucking, but with love and forgiveness.
Taylor Padgett trained with Niña to become 2015 Miss West Point Rodeo Queen in Cullman last month, a dream she has been trying to accomplish for a couple years. The Padgett sisters described Gilbert as “a woman who made all their dreams come true.”
“Niña just stepped right in where she belongs,” Taylor Padgett said. “So you’re not just rehabbing them, you are rehabbing yourself, and that gets the stress away from work, school or other social issues.”
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Information from: The Decatur Daily, https://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/index.shtml
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