As owner looks to wind down operations, Save-A-Horse Stable foregoing annual open house
Courtesy of Darlene Moore
After more than 40 years, Darlene Moore would love to be able to wind down operations at Save-A-Horse Stable.
But then she’ll get a call about a horse in need of a good home whose owners had no other recourse.
Or a donkey that’s running wild.
So Moore is continuing to bring them to her rescue stable in Sycamore.
“I was thinking about closing it down, but I can see that I can’t, because they won’t leave me alone,” she said.
Because of poor health this year, she is skipping one event that has become a fixture of the sanctuary, which has operated as a nonprofit since 2014: the annual open house in October.
This year, with a variety of health concerns in the family, she wasn’t up to it physically or mentally, she said.
But she’s still gotten support.
“Some people found out I wasn’t doing the open house, and they’re still sending me donations like they did when they came here, so that helps,” she said.
Moore started the stable in 1982, after buying horses to prevent them from going to slaughter. She began renting them out for trail rides, which she continued for 32 years.
Then the horses and Moore got older. Insurance rates for trail rides went up. And Moore decided, “I can’t do this anymore.” She closed the business down and retired the horses.
Its next incarnation came after a woman who brought the horse to her suggested forming a nonprofit organization that could help feed the horses.
“I never thought about it,” Moore said. “I just thought I’d feed them until they die, because they’d worked for me for years.”
So 11 years ago she turned Save-A-Horse Stable into a nonprofit organization, which helps raise funds for rescues, and the cost of feeding the animals and keeping them healthy. Moore’s nonprofit currently has 48 animals, including five donkeys.
Accepting donations has taken away some of the mental stress that came with managing finances, Moore said. But that still leaves the physical wear and tear of hauling water buckets and feeding the animals in winter, especially 43 years in.
“I’m older, and it’s just harder to deal with this stuff,” she said. “You move slower as you get older, and it’s just a lot of strain.”
She’ll call in a blacksmith, veterinarian and even a chiropractor if necessary for animals. Drawing on her many years of experience working for a veterinarian’s office in Greene County, Moore and her family will handle some of the tasks themselves, like giving animals medicine or deworming them.
While Moore is still taking in horses, the number of unwanted horses she gets called about means she has to be selective.
“If people call me because they just don’t want to take care of them anymore, I won’t take them,” she said. “It’s like, ‘That’s your problem.’ But if there’s a reason that they can’t take care of them, I’ll take them.”
Sometimes, they’ve been abused and starved animals in dire need of good care. Often, she hears from family members of horse owners who passed away and need a good home for their animals.
Once, she drove to Tennessee in November to pick up a horse whose owner had told his daughter, “Make sure my boys are taken care of.”
Moore has gotten up to $50,000 a year in donations, although over the years she’s pitched in more than that from her own money to get treatment for horses that have severe health issues.
She began holding the open houses six years ago. Guests get a helping of homemade food and take wagon rides up the hill to see the horses — often up close enough to feed them apples.
For now, she plans to bring the open house back next year, although to save time she may have catering instead of the usual array of homemade treats.
Moore hopes to be able to wind down her operations — still taking care of the animals that are there, but referring new calls elsewhere. She’d heard about another animal rescue organization in Carmichaels that she plans to check out.
Other organizations have come and gone over the years, she said. She’s been fortunate to persist, she said, adding, “I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it for the horses.”
Even during the open houses, she’s always been fortunate to have nice weather.
“God’s on my side, because it’s a horse stable, I’m saving the horses, and he cares about the horses,” she said. “So I think I’m doing it for the right reasons, and He helps me out with it.”