“An 18 year old gelding, who was bought from an auction. His old owners sold him because they found him unsuitable for their children, this boy?
He didn’t even have a name, he was just a number at the auction, we named him Charlie, he is just the sweetest. It is obvious that he never had a proper training, 18 and green, no wonder he couldn’t find a permanent home.
Tracing owner to owner, it was impossible to find any useful information about him. Finally after months we found his first owner who was also his breeder. A middle aged man living with his family on a big farm but no horses in sight.
He and his family welcomed us warmly when he heard about Charlie. He admitted having horses in this farm decades ago, turns out this farm was a thoroughbred farm, they would breed racers here. But 12 years ago due to financial issues they had to sell all the horses and turn the farm into a dairy farm for more profit. After chatting for a while we asked him about our boy Charlie. Of course he did not remember him, but after showing his photo, his eyes shined and said the name ‘Bolt Shade’. He was a colt who was born here, after his mother’s unexpected death, this gentleman took care of him.
Turns out Bolt Shade was a successful colt when he was training, due to his willingness to run, the farm decided to sell him to a rich owner who took him to another state, despite moving far away his caretaker did not want to leave him. He often contacted his new owner to learn about his well being.
After months, the man got a call from Bolt’s new owner, he learned that tomorrow he would run his first race, the next day he was there waiting for Bolt Shade to show up, when he saw him he took a picture with his old camera.
Bolt Shade finished the race at the 4th place, despite new owner’s high hopes, Bolt was not a very successful racer. Bolt got sold and the man never heard about him until today.
The kind gentleman gave us the photo he took years ago, where Charlie was a young colt going to his first race. We thanked him and his family ad left, he promised us to visit us and see Charlie a.k.a Bolt Shade.
Charlie now has a permanent home and being trained properly to be a trail horse where he doesn’t need to worry about anything and just enjoy life.”