ZANESVILLE, Ohio – A local horse trainer has 100 days to get a feral horse trained and ready for adoption.
Adam Black has been working with Phoebe for just over 60 days now, and he said it is incredible to see how far she has already come.
“Her standing here quiet now, if we would’ve done this in the middle of May when we first picked her up, she would be at that end of the arena. We’d be over here and she would be so nervous. So, it kind of takes a minute for it to kind of really sink in but when you step back and look at that stuff, it really means a lot,” Black said.
Adam Black and Phoebe are entered in the Appalachian Trainer Face Off. A horse training competition that shows how far the horses have come in 100 days. They want to show how well they trained the horse, with the main goal of getting all the horses adopted to good homes.
Black said “Long story short, you take a horse that basically has no education or very limited, have it for 100 days. Teach it how to be a civilized citizen and eventually be adopted and placed in a new home.”
Black said that Phoebe was born on the strip mines of West Virginia where there was hardly anything for her to eat. She was abandoned by her herd, and was on the brink of death before she was rescued.
“She was born on the strip mines of West Virginia, Mingo County. She was born there, rejected from her herd. She became extremely emaciated, wandered into a populated area and that is where she was kind of noticed,” Black added.
She was rescued by the Heart of Phoenix, an organization who rehabbed her, put some weight on her, and let her grow up. Adam then stepped in to train her from the beginning, by getting her comfortable with people. Followed by getting used to the Saddle, and then getting used to a rider, and many more steps in between. Black has been training horses for two years professionally, and he wants to continue his efforts.
Black said “I know now that this is what I want to do for a career and I enjoy it. I see myself doing training for a long time and things like this. I’ve always been a big proponent for adoption and rescuing and helping.”
The Appalachian Trainer Faceoff will take place in Winfield West Virginia August 23rd and 24th, where over 35 horses will be adoptable.
