TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Horse's Life Didn't Turn Out As Planned

Tribune photo by Keith Morelli

Bodie is a 15-year-old American Saddlebred, born to be a show horse. But life turned out different. He was sold in a divorce, hauled carts for the Amish and was rescued from a slaughterhouse. Now, he's in the care of new owner Andrea Whiting, owner of the Arbordale Riding Academy.

ADVERTISEMENT

By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 9, 2009

CARROLLWOOD - Big chunks of Bodie's life are missing. The only clues as to what happened between 1998 and 2007 are the scars crisscrossing his face and body and the arthritis stiffening his joints.

Born into horse royalty some 15 years ago and destined for the show circuit, Bodie's life has taken many turns. He was chattel in a divorce, which led to years of hard labor pulling an Amish cart along hard highways in Pennsylvania. But now, he's back on top, proving that nice horses don't always finish last in this riches-to-rags-back-to-riches equine story.

Since setting hoof down at the Arbordale Riding Academy in October 2007, Bodie has been to six horse shows and has come back with four blue ribbons and the reserve champion title this past weekend at the Gasparilla Charity Horse Show held on the Florida State Fairgrounds.

Bodie is an American Saddlebred, a show horse breed, said Andrea Whiting, owner of the Arbordale Riding Academy in Carrollwood, where Bodie now resides. Bodie is on his third name, at least, over his 15 years.

His life is somewhat easy now; he helps youngsters learn how to properly ride. It wasn't always so easy, Whiting said.

"He was going to be a European horse steak," she said.

Bodie came to the local stable through the American Saddlebred Rescue, which had managed to pull him from the clutches of a horse-meat broker in Pennsylvania two years ago. His destination was a slaughterhouse in Canada, where his meat would be packaged and sold either in Europe or Japan, where horse meat for human consumption is somewhat in demand,

Whiting said an intermediary for the rescue organization either outbid the meat broker for Bodie or bought him after the auction sale.

In any event, Whiting got the horse from the rescue group, which paid maybe $300. Trained Saddlebred horses can range from $3,500 on up to $30,000, if a horse shows promise.

After she got the horse in October 2007 and named him Bodie, Whiting put an ad in a show horse publication, trying to find someone who knew of the horse's past. It wasn't long before she heard from Bodie's first owner, Diane Coker of Pennsylvania, who knew the horse as Kismet's Prime Time, or Prime for short.

"I'm the original owner," Coker said this afternoon. "I sold the horse to friend of mine. She got divorced and she had someone else sell the horse. I never saw the horse again. I didn't know where he had gone.

"Then, I was going through the latest issue of American Saddlebred Magazine and I saw a close-up of a horse's head," Coker said, "and I recognized him. This is a lucky story; that someone recognized the fact that he was an American Saddlebred. He was headed to the slaughterhouse."

She said the horse was not destined to be a world champion.

"He is just a nice little horse," she said. "I'm thrilled he's in Florida. Everybody wants to know it when animals have a good outcome."

Bodie was born in South Carolina, offspring of the stallion Harlem Shuffle and had shown some promise as a show horse, Coker said. She sold the horse in 1998 to a friend who promised to train and show him. But the friend ended up getting divorced and the horse was sold by a third party, who later died. The horse "had slipped through the cracks," Coker said.

The next nine years are a blank, but for some of that time, if not all of it, he was pulling heavy carts and carriages for the Amish, Coker said, often logging anywhere from 20 to 35 miles a day.
His health deteriorated, he lost weight and he had become "road sore," said Bodie's current owner, Whiting.

His Amish owners decided to sell him for slaughter. At the Pennsylvania sale in August 2007, a horse-meat broker wanted him and it looked like the once-proud show horse was headed for the meat grinder.

But that's when the American Saddlebred Rescue intervened. Prime, or whatever his Amish alias was, was named Timone by Pat Johnson, executive director of the rescue group, based in New Jersey.
Johnson said there was something about the horse that sparked an interest at the slaughterhouse auction in New Holland, Pa., two years ago.

"He was pretty," she said. "He had a lot of white on him and he was interested in what you were doing. He would watch you and he was looking like he liked people."

That's key in getting horses that can be adopted out, she said.

"I can't get all of the horses," she said. "I can only get those I feel I can help. If they're not healthy or sound enough, I'll never be able to find them homes."

Arbordale Riding Academy adopted the horse within two months.

"He's looking pretty good," Whiting said, as she brushed Bodie's mane and tail. "I would like to see him put on a little more weight, though."

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT