Hoare Abbey

My name is Hoare Abbey, and everything hurts. I’m hungry all the time, I feel sick and weak, and all I want to do is lie down, but still, they make me work. 

Work is all I’ve ever known. I used to be made to race and jump. I wasn’t very good at it. I never won, sometimes I couldn’t even finish. So, after a few years they ‘retired’ me. Retirement can mean very different things to horses than it does to humans. I was sent to my next job – being ridden for fun. 

She calls me Thor, and twice a week she rides me, while I get weaker and weaker. Something isn’t right. I keep waiting for someone, anyone, to notice. I have a sore on my back that’s growing where my bones are sticking out, but she just keeps putting saddles and blankets over it and climbing on. Every step is agony, but I was trained for racing – training that tells me to do as I’m told. I continue to carry her. 

Today is different though, today there are other people around me. We’re at an event, not a big one like the races they used to take me to, but a small, local one. People are looking at me, talking about me, pointing at me. And now someone’s approaching me, inspecting me, recoiling, making calls. I think they might want to help me. 

Not long after, they come for me. They take me somewhere I can get medical treatment, put weight back on, and feel stronger again.  It takes months before I can feel safe on my own legs again, confident that they won’t collapse under me. Maybe one day I can run again – not because somebody is on top of me, wanting to win a race or an event, but just because I feel like it.  

Not everyone who is used for racing gets a second chance, almost nobody gets a third. 

My name is Hoare Abbey. I am someone.