Trooper's Story

Trooper is a beautiful bay who ended up in an auction kill pen twice by the time he was eight. The first time was as a recently retired racehorse; the final stop for 90% of racehorses at the end of their career. 

Instead, Trooper was sold to a Mexican-style rodeo to become part of their horse tripping events. 

Horse tripping is forcing a horse into a running gallop and roping their front or hind legs causing it to trip and crash to the ground. Cowboys are awarded points for tripping the horse and how fast they can do it.  This cruel and horrific “sport” is considered entertainment.   This type of rodeo is also held in the US in mostly western states.  Illegal in many, but not all states, stopping this barbaric practice is hard to enforce as many of these rodeos are held in rural places.  

Mexican tripping horses suffer constant painful and untreated injuries, are often starved, live in cramped and filthy conditions and repeatedly roped until lame, sometimes with rope burns down to the bone.  It didn’t take long before Trooper was used up and back at the auction block.  

Miraculously instead of being sold for slaughter, Trooper was purchased by a rescue organization that brought him to their farm for rehabilitation and future adoption.  He was 400 pounds underweight and broken physically and psychologically - possibly beyond recovery.  They named him Trooper because he survived.   

How Trooper Became Part of Our Lives  

A few years before Blackdawg Farm Sanctuary (BDFS) came into being, Tom and I adopted two rescue horses from this (now defunct) rescue organization. Trooper and a beautiful, dappled gray named Sterling. 

Trooper was still 200 pounds underweight with significant muscle and skeletal issues, aggressive behaviors, untrusting and bone weary.

As soon as he was at our little farm, we gave him one-on-one individualized daily care and love, fresh air, a pasture to freely roam in during the day and a pal - Sterling.  Although it did not happen overnight, Trooper began to regain his strength and health.  Given space, time and freedom, he also began to find the resilience to put the shattered pieces back together and become the horse he never had the chance to be.    

Trooper is now a confident, full of himself, highly intelligent horse.  Although he is the youngest of the horse herd, he is the patriarch.  He is especially close to two members of the affectionately coined “Bay Club”.  The Bay Club came into being when Sweet and Sasha came to BDFS a few years after Trooper.  The three of them are the best of friends and hang out together in the pasture where Trooper diligently watches over his girls.    Read more about our history and how Trooper and Sterling started our farm sanctuary. 

Photo credit to Barbra Kates www.barbrakates.com