I’ve seen the people at Blue Star work great magic on horses that are beaten, starved, tortured and abandoned (horses that are really abused, not like the New York Carriage Horses, who are not), but I’ve never seen a more dramatic example of horse magic than the work Pamela, her late husband Paul, and the workers at Blue Star Equiculture have done on Sarge.

Sarge is a 17-year-old blind trail horse who was taken to Blue Star from the Dorset, Vermont, Equine Rescue group. Paul came to Vermont to get him, and I saw him there a few days later, he was skittish, wary, uncertain. I didn’t recognize him at first, he is a pack leader now, he has a bunch of girl friends, he sat calmly while Pamela brushed and fed him and I came up and touched him on the head and nose, he barely moved. A new puppy skittered around his feet and the other big horses, tied up to for feeding, bumped into him and brushed up against him.

It was a very poignant thing to see how Sarge has adapted, how calm and affectionate he is, how much a part of the herd he is. Pamela says he has changed the dynamic of the big horses at Blue Star, they know him and welcome him and treat him well. And, she says, he is a big heartthrob, the girls love him.

He has no eyesight, but it is as if he can see.

He is a very content animal. He was minutes away from slaughter, Dorset Rescue saved him and Blue Star has given him a permanent home. Pamela told me it costs $700 or $800 a week to grain the big horses at Blue Star. You can help by joining their herd. It’s a good cause, we waste so much money fighting about the happy and safe horses pulling carriages in Central Park, there are so many Sarge’s out there, heading to slaughter auctions every day.

We can get our priorities right. Instead of giving money to organizations that do not help animals, we can support those that do.