I'm looking for some advice for my friend. She's the equine coordinator at a non-profit therapeutic horseback-riding center in Central Washington state. Her job is to manage the care of the horses, the schooling and exercise program for the horses, and to evaluate and work with trial horses.

The way that this and many other therapeutic riding programs obtain most of their horses is donations. Many people want to donate their horses to programs like this if they don't have time for them anymore, can't afford them, or just want them to have a nice retirement job. All horses are taken in on a trial period to see if they will be a good fit for the program. The horses must be safe, sane, quiet, "bombproof", and sound.

Recently, they brought in a horse on trial named Ike. Ike is very very sweet, but his feet are not in good condition and he has arthritis. He is not sound enough to work in the program, so my friend called up his owner today to tell her that she was sorry, but he wasn't going to work out. This is fairly common.

The owner answered by telling her that she cannot afford to keep him anymore, and basically that if the program couldn't take him, she was going to have him put down.

I, personally, think this is disgustingly manipulative. You don't try to guilt a charity into taking a horse that they can't use. It wouldn't be ethical to put riders on this horse for lessons. He could probably do some very light riding, but he wouldn't hold up as a school horse.

So now my friend is in a difficult situation. This horse is very sweet and, except for his arthritis, healthy. She doesn't want to send him to his death just because he's not going to make it as a school horse, but the program is not a horse rescue. They can't keep horses that they're not using. They don't have the funds or the space. I suggested that she give the lady two months to try to find another option, another place for him to go. She's going to look into local horse rescue programs, but since the slaughter ban, they've all been overloaded with horses, so she's not thinking that will be a likely option.

Does anyone have any other ideas for finding this horse a home? He would be for free, but they want to make sure that he's not going to be thrown out in a pasture to starve over the winter. Because of the condition of his feet ("thoroughbred feet" for anyone who is familiar with horses) he is not really an easy keeper, but that isn't that hard of a problem to manage.

Ideas?