Save My Daughter’s Horse

Please Help Save My Daughter’s Horse

Putting out this fund raising campaign is actually super hard for us. We don’t want handouts and our family works very hard for the things we want BUT unfortunately we don’t have an option with this. I know this is long but please read through it.

My 14 year-old daughter, Taylor, started cleaning horse stalls over a year ago. She cleans 18 stalls 6 days a week and an additional 9 stalls 4 days a week. Her dad and I go with her most days and we do it together. She wanted to buy a horse that she could move up on in the local hunter/jumper competitions. She has been riding for about 4 years now. It is an expensive hobby and we can only afford it if she helps, so she uses her stall cleaning money to help pay for lessons and then over the last year she put all extra money, including any birthday or gifted money, in savings so she could buy a horse. She also pet/house sits (she takes care of a few dogs and a few pigs!) every now and then and picks up some odds and ends jobs around the barn (such as body clipping horses.) She has also been wrapping Christmas presents for two years in a row and put all of that in savings as well.

She knows that if she wants this, she has to work for it and she does so happily.

She began leasing a horse in March of this year as a trial to see if she wanted to purchase it. She leased the horse for 4 months and after a clear vet check and x-rays decided it was the horse for her. In July she made the purchase.

She 100% purchased this horse with her own hard earned money.

She purchased an off the track bay thoroughbred. Her registered name is Song of Faith, but we call her Pickles. She is 9 years-old.

About a month in Pickles started swelling up on the left side of her chest. The vet came out and found that it was an abscess. She opened it up and ran a culture that came back clear. We kept it clean and it started to heal up. Two days after the clear culture came back, her throat swelled up really bad. We took her to Southwest Equine in Scottsdale to an internal medicine doctor and she said that the abscess is still there and is massive. She wanted to open it up far enough to get her hand inside, scoop everything out, and get her back to good. She wasn’t able to do that because there is a main blood vessel running right through it. It has multiple chambers and is filled with dead tissue. She cut what she could and removed some dead tissue and sent off for a bunch of labs and tests to find out exact what this is. She believes it may be pigeon fever. She said Pickles is a great horse in excellent health but unfortunately has an abscess in a really bad location making it very hard to treat. The option is to put $6000 to $8000 into the horse to save her, or put her down.

If you would like to see photos of the current state of Pickles, let me know and I can send them. I can only add one photo to this.

The vet is pretty confident that she can save the horse but we don’t have the money. I don’t want my daughter to lose a horse she just bought 2 months ago, so I am asking for some help from others.

If you have anything you can spare, we would appreciate it. If you have it on your heart to donate $500 or more, you can call Southwest Equine in Scottsdale, AZ and pay them directly. They have said they cannot process small payments and requested that nobody calls to check on the horse. If you do this, please let me k ow so we can confirm it goes on our account. I will post updates as I get them. You can also message me if you would rather send through Venmo or Zelle.

I am happy to give a photo session for anyone that is local to the East Valley Phoenix, AZ area and can donate at least $125. If anyone needs wedding photography I am happy to shoot your wedding in exchange for a donation in the same amount as my wedding packages. You can message me for more info if you are interested in these options. I am totally willing to give what I can in exchange for your donation.

Please help my daughter save her horse