When Amy Stockman first saw Jack, she knew she could save him.

He was approximately 7 years old when she met him, and even then, he wasn’t an ordinary young man.

Jack is a breathtakingly beautiful quarter horse cross, and one of the first horses saved by Stockman’s Tender Mercy Equine Rescue.

“What happened to him, it almost destroyed his faith in us,” Stockman says. “He was never a mean horse, he would never do anything to hurt anyone, he just wanted to be left alone. He’ll never be able to really, truly let anyone into his world, and that’s why he’ll always be a resident here at Tender Mercy.”

Stockman was working at a stable when she first met Jack, and even from the beginning, she says there was just something about him.

“No one ever really gave him the benefit of the doubt, and no one really ever allowed him to build up that bond between a horse and their person that can be so powerful,” Stockman says.

Jack was passed from owner to owner, suffering severe abuses along the way. That trauma has left him standoffish and aloof - but at the same time, he’s one of the first to accept a treat from the hand of any child; a human he views as safe.

And he does trust Stockman; that much is clear even as he stands next to her with a barely contained patience. He’s always eager to get back to his herd, for that’s what the rest of the Tender Mercy horses are - whoever and however many are on the premises at the time.

Now, he is her head horse, keeping the small herd in line and warning them of anything he deems dangerous. He was usually the lone horse, content to graze off by himself and to keep the others at a distance.

But none of them ever seem to doubt his fierce loyalty and protective spirit.

After Jack, Stockman knew that she wanted to try to help as many horses as she could. For her, it’s not just a matter of finding them a quiet pasture in which to live out the rest of their days. The true success stories are the ones where the horses find forever homes with families that truly care for them.

“I don’t want pasture pets,” Stockman says. “I want to find every one of our horses a home where they can be happy, healthy, and truly part of a family. Every one of them is unique, every one of them is special, and it’s always hard to let them go. But hearing from our placement families and finding out how well they’re doing... it makes it all worthwhile.”

Since 2001, Stockman and Tender Mercy have placed more than 100 horses in homes.

Recently placements include Lucky, a grey pony who is almost completely blind, Cash, a young, off-the-track thoroughbred and Dianna, a 20-year-old thoroughbred mare.

Stockman has also taken in severely abused and underweight horses from a recent SPCA seizure - a case that ended with a happy ending for at least some of the horses, who went on to their forever homes.

Unfortunately, she knows that not all stories have happy endings.

“There are always the tough ones,” she says. “There are the ones that we can’t do anything for, that we can only make as comfortable as they can be. It’s hard, but at least we can do that much. At least they have a handful of days when they know that someone truly cares for them. And for some reason, it seems that whenever we have a tough day, that’s when we get a call or an email from one of our placement families with updates that remind me why I do this.”

She has always had a love of horses, and at first glance, it might seem like she’s living with a dream job. It’s not all fun and games, however, and she has little time to do one of the things most associated with her equine charges - riding.
In fact, it’s only recently that she’s been able to get back in the saddle with Dell, a thoroughbred from Long Island that came to TMER with a soft tissue injury and chiropractic issues that were only diagnosed after his arrival. And even those rides are work, she says, designed to build up muscle and strength in hopes of fixing Dell’s chronic problems.

More often is the less glamorous work of mucking stalls, cleaning muddy horses, pushing hay bales out into the field and - this time of year - breaking ice in buckets to make sure they always have access to fresh water.

And she does it with almost no heavy machinery, cleaning stalls and moving hay by hand, dragging hoses down to the barn and cleaning pastures with a shovel and wheelbarrow.

However, the truly difficult part of running Tender Mercy is the fundraising.

“We rely entirely on donations, so it takes a lot of work making sure we can keep all our horses fed during their rehabilitations,” Stockman says. “Medical bills can add up quickly, especially with problems that only show themselves after we’ve mended something else.”

And in spite of her desire to see all her horses in permanent homes, Tender Mercy does have several permanent residents - like Jack. Among them is Buddy, an aging appaloosa and Starr, a mare that TMER rescued from the meat auction at New Holland.

“The only other person bidding on her was a kill buyer,” says Stockman. “We couldn’t even get a good look at her when we were bidding on her, we just knew we had to get another horse out of that place.”

It was only when they led her out to the trailer that they realized she was missing an eye, due to an old, untreated injury.

And it was only when they got her back to the rescue that they realized she was also pregnant. On that Easter Sunday, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

Now, that tiny, curious little colt with a heart infinitely bigger than his pony-sized frame is eight years old, and in a forever home of his own.

“He’s definitely one of our special ones,” Stockman says with a laugh, pulling out a photo of the little horse wrapped in a fleece baby blanket. Decorated with yellow ducks, it was the only thing small and light enough to be worn by the wobbly little colt. “And he never would have been born if we hadn’t been fortunate enough to get her out of there.”

Starr is happy and healthy, but - unlike her son - will never be able to be ridden. Her history is unknown, but any attempts to ride her are extremely traumatic for her. And that last thing that Stockman will do is make any of her horses feel fear again.

“The horses we have here... they’ve already been through so much. Many of them are terrified of people when they come here, some expect to be hit, some don’t know what it’s like to always have hay in front of them. When I can get them trusting people enough to find that special person they’ll come running for... that’s when I know I’ve done my job.”

For more information about Tender Mercy Equine Rescue - including how to participate in some of their upcoming holiday fundraisers - visit www.tendermercyrescue.com.

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