This is Grace - a grey Arabian born in 2000.
She is one of the horses cared for a small charity in QLD called Hope Reins - a pro bono customer of Blaze Your Trail.
This is Grace's story as told by Hope Reins.
Grace has saved a life. It happened in July 2013…
Grace and Beauty (Promise’s mum) were having a long holiday at a friend’s place, the other side of Gympie, enjoying their grass.
Beside the property is a house where a man and his brother live.
The brother had recently changed medication.
The change and new medication were causing him to be disoriented.
At 10pm one night he wandered out of the house, crawled under the barbed wire fence between the two properties and stumbled across the paddock into the dam that is there.
He can’t swim.
His absence was almost immediately noted, but where would they look for him?
Should they jump in the cars and go down to the main road nearby?
Was he wandering in the dark around the house?
The brother at this point noticed Grace. “She was going ballistic,” he later said.
“She was tossing her head around and rearing up a little on the side of the dam. And she appeared to be glowing white.
We raced through the fence and found my brother in the water.
Another few minutes and we would have been too late.
The next day, our friends found the man’s jacket shredded in the barbed wire fence.
Their neighbour came to apologise for all the noise and lights from the night before (none of which they heard!). “The horse saved my brother’s life,” their neighbour said, “I don’t know how to thank her.”
Our friends replied, “She really likes carrots!”
Grace was born with the end of her nose badly twisted (called a wry nose). Her tongue hangs out sometimes and her teeth don’t line up, but that doesn’t stop her eating! It’s interesting that the majority of people upon meeting Grace, have one of two responses … either they instantly find her beautiful and sweet or they think she is angry and might attack them.
In reality, Grace has such a sweet, gentle spirit that her personality breaks through and people see the amazing little horse that she is. Her story is one of coping with a disability. We focus on her ability.
She runs with all the grace and beauty Arabians are famous for, however, due to her twisted nose, one of Grace’s nostrils is partially closed and she is not able to breathe in as much air as most horses. This means she can’t run for as long but she doesn’t seem to mind!
Grace loves life, and really loves people. She enjoys as much attention from humans as she can possibly get!
Grace’s party trick is to eat a mango whole and spit out the seed while the juice runs down her body.
If this story has touched you please head to the Hope Reins website, join their newsletter list and make a donation.
