When I first saw her pictures and video she was just a number. A small Quarter Horse type mare being moved around a pen loose, and wearing the tell tale hip tag of a horse that's recently gone through an auction. Hip number 243 to be exact. She'd found herself at Sexton's Horse and Mule Co. in Tennessee and without the intervention of Southern Maryland Equine Rescue she would have likely been headed for Canada or Mexico. Hip 243's backstory is vague at best and who know's how much of it is true? Never the less we can only go on what we are given when making choices to pull horses from these dire situations. Often times you have mere hours to decide with nothing but a terrible picture and crappy video to help guide your decision. In 243's video she was listed as an 11 yr old QH mare that was running with a black QH stud and bred for an early spring foal. She had come in with a group of mares who were all supposedly in foal but, unlike the others hip 243 wasn't able to be handled and therefore her odds were much worse than the mares who were shown being led around and some even saddled up.
My involvment in 243's life started a couple of weeks earlier before any of us had even seen her. I made a donation to SMEM for one of their other rescue horses and got talking with Melinda about horses in general and rescue. Taylor and I were casually shopping for another horse but I mentioned to Melinda that I had a lot of experience with foaling and that if they ever found themselves with a pregnant mare to let me know. Two weeks later I got a message that they were trying to pull a mare from a kill pen in TN and would I take a look at their pictures. The wheels started turning that day and for three mares it was their freedom ride. 243 and her two fieldmates made the double legged journey from TN to MD and started their quarantine. With that trip came hope and a new name! 243 became Pebbles...a number no more!
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