These are the Abbys and their story will amaze you.
This mare/filly pair is on the front of our 2019 calendar (buy at www.srwhmg.org), because they are our best survival story of the year:
What most people notice first about the beautiful dark brown pair, is that the foal is her mother’s mini me. It is not common for a foal to have identical markings to one of their parents, so they are very unique. Little Abby (Abigail) is usually hiding behind big Abby (Abilene), which makes for the cutest possible snapshots (From a 50 ft distance please).
Observant horse watchers may notice something else; the mother’s back is covered in scars, on her spine, withers and sides. They are not battle scars, but scars from her brush with death on Bush Hwy, and evidence of her incredible will to survive.
On October 4th 2017, we were called to an accident where a vehicle hit a band of wild horses at a horse crossing. A call like that is our worst nightmare…
Three of the horses in the band were hit. All three were fillys, the youngest filly, Odessa, died on the scene, the middle filly injured her legs, and Abby, the oldest, appeared to have been thrown and injured her back.
With injuries, we organize our field-team to closely monitor them and record progress, and if things go the wrong way, we may decide to rescue. It is always hard to watch them in pain, but we knew that they had a chance to survive and stay in the wild.
Abby recovered, slowly but surely, and in August of 2018, gave birth to little Abby. Horses are pregnant for 11 months, so Abby was already pregnant with little Abby, on the day she was hit by a vehicle and walked away from it.
We find that wildly amazing and a real testiment to the toughness of wild horses.
Both Abbys are doing excellent today. The other young filly that was hit, Dixie, has also fully recovered. There is even more to this wildly amazing story, but we will save that for next time. Please keep following us and be sure to share this story as a testament to how tough wild horses are.
We are hoping for more safety improvements in 2019 on Bush Hwy, in order to make this precious pair, plus the rest of the herd, safer. They still cross at the same horse crossing so please slow down and watch for them when you are driving on Bush Hwy!! The horse crossing signs indicate actual horse crossings!
We spend a lot of resources and manpower on installing fences and gates on Bush Hwy and we fight for more safety and more improvements.
You can support us with a monthly donation or a one time donation and you can also support us by buying our beautiful 2019 calendar with the Abbys on the cover! There are other Salt River Horse calendars, but this is the only one, that helps to keep them safe! Thank you for your support! Please share.
Click this link for the calendar:
https://saltriverwildhorsemanagementgroup.org/…/2019-srwhm…/
