Right before the Airport fire and ensuing evacuation, we had another tragedy that hit us: we lost our lovely Friesian, Raven. We have been so overwhelmed with evacuating and then bringing everyone back that we didn't have the time nor the heart to announce her passing. Raven came to Hanaeleh at the end of 2021- she had been sold after she was no longer able to produce any more babies, and she ended up being donated to a lesson program. The only issue was that she wasn't trained to ride! The … [Read more...]
Raven Update: June 2023
Let's check in with Raven to see how her summer is going! First, Raven's Backstory We rescued Raven almost two years ago- she is about 17 years old now. She had been a broodmare in her past, and later given to a trainer as a lesson horse. When the trainer got on her, however, she quickly realized that Raven had no idea what she was asking- Raven was kind and forgiving, but had no formal training for driving or under saddle. The trainer had some family issues and did not have the time to train … [Read more...]
Raven Goes to School
We are excited to share that Raven took a field trip last week to visit Canyon High School! Hanaeleh's president, Elizabeth Zarkos, is an English teacher at Canyon, and she wanted to find a way to help introduce horses to the students. A few years ago, Hanaeleh had a grant that allowed us to bring some horses to Canyon to do Socio-Emotional Learning with the students, but that money ran out. We weren't sure how we were going to manage bringing a horse back to the campus. Luckily, Mr. … [Read more...]
Sleepy Raven
This weekend we caught Raven napping for a while on her new shavings. Just like with people, some horses like to nap more than others. Unlike humans, however, horses only need about 45 minutes of REM sleep a night; they can lock their stifle and doze, which is how they get most of the rest they need. Raven naps quite a bit. It could be that she is an older girl; at 17 working on 18, she is getting pretty old for a Friesian- the average lifespan of a Friesian is about 16 years, due to genetic … [Read more...]