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By Carlo Faillace
One of the activities of our organization (PROEQUO- organization for the protection of the horse) is that of recovery and rehabilitation of horses
Some months ago a haflinger mare was brought to us, literally thrown on our premises from a truck which had no loading or unloading ramps. She was coming from a sort of "horse for rent" stable, where the animals were kept in very poor conditions, with no bedding on a dirty floor and forced to stand tied to a wall. The exploitation of the little mare had come to the end, because she could not walk any more. It was thus decided to sell her to the butcher, but, amazingly, someone in the place, moved to compassion, suggested to send her to some horse protection organization.
When she arrived at our place, she was quickly forced to jump off the truck and left there, before we could understand what was going on. We immedialtely realized, however, that she could hardly walk. We fixed her up in a nice, clean and comfortable box and started to take care of her.
She was shod, but she had been neglected for such a long time that the shoes, instead of falling off, had become part of the foot, since the wall had grown all around covering them completely. Unshoeing her.was certainly not an easy job. Even unshod she could not walk: she could only make a few steps and then stumble and fall.
She had no name that we knew of and therefore we called her "Briciola" (which means Crumpet in English). After a good trimming I started exercizing Briciola every day, working her at the lounge and, obviously, barefooted. It took time and patience. Slowly she improved and became able to trot along playing with her new mates when free at grass. Finally she was galloping and bucking.
Almost by accident I found out that in her past life experience she had been harnessed. A friend lent me a very nice cart which he had just finished restauring and Briciola started her training for the "tradition shows".
May 26, 2002, the closing day of the International Horse Show of Rome, Briciola proudly showed off and paraded in the most famous Horse Show arena of Italy, piazza di Siena, on a background of valz music and in front of a numerous audience that applauded her more than any other team.
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