40 / Sport and Trail Magazine
Sixteen Hands Horse Sanctuary
Ona, Florida
By Robin Cain, Founder
When I finally found the property, I pulled over onto the shoulder of the road to wait for the sheriff’s deputy. I had received a call earlier in the day about two horses that were in pretty bad shape and needed help.
The place wasn't the absolute wreck that I'm used to seeing when rescuing a neglected horse, and for a minute I wondered where the horses were being kept.
Directly in front of me was a small dirt paddock that was surrounded by a sagging barbed wire fence. The gate to the pen opened out onto an area of decent grass that was not fenced. As I was running my eyes around the place, a movement caught my eye. Out of the shade of a tree in the corner of the dirt paddock stepped a big yellow horse. My first thought was, “Why did the horse stay in the dirt when the gate was open with access to all that grass?" Then I saw the reason she couldn’t leave. She was tied to the tree with a rope around her neck. When she finally came all the way out of the shadows and into the sun, I could clearly see every bone in her body!
This is just one of many heartbreaking stories behind more than 70 equines rescued and given a lifetime home over an 11-year period.
Sixteen Hands Horse Sanctuary is located in a very small town called Ona, in Hardee County, Florida. In 2007 we had a humble start on 4.5 acres with a 2-stall barn. We now have a 22-stall barn on just over 23 acres.
Our mission is to give horses that would otherwise perish a chance to live out their lives as naturally as possible. When I decided to go into the horse rescue business, I made a promise to the horses I rescued that they would be safe forever. So they are housed and handled in a natural setting. They come into barn stalls only to eat their grain and get medical care. For the remaining 23 hours of each day, they are out in pastures eating hay and interacting with each other in large herds.
Another part of our mission is to bring awareness of the principles of natural horsemanship to members of the community. A good number of the horses we rescue are not only suffering physically, they are shut down mentally and emotionally. Natural horsemanship helps to bring them back. It's a slow process but well worth the time and effort when you start to see the spark of life come back into their eyes.
We have developed a natural horsemanship program for our volunteers called “Savvy Sessions.” We get together on weekends to learn about horse behavior and develop rope-handling skills. This program is very popular because the volunteers work so hard and really enjoy getting to “play” and develop strong bonds with the horses.
Not only is Sixteen Hands a haven for horses, it has turned out to be a sanctuary for our volunteers. When people with stress in their lives, family illness, job challenges, you name it, come to the sanctuary and interact with our horses, they forget about their own problems and just enjoy the horses