Khianna has spent the past three years or so living the good life at her foster home in Enumclaw. There she shared a five acre field with three other horses and enjoyed the great care provided by Denise M and her family.

Khianna came to SAFE as an 13 year old, and we were told that she’d been ridden in her previous home, but it had been quite some time since anyone had been on her back. So she was sent off to be restarted under saddle in 2012. She had some issues that came up in training, most alarmingly a tendency to bolt under saddle, and our trainer at the time felt that it would take far more than the usual 60–90 days to safely resolve the issue. So Khianna was declared a companion horse, suitable to a life spent looking pretty in a pasture, something she clearly was qualified for.

Fast forward three years. The training program at SAFE has grown and expanded to include more options for the horses in our care than just dressage. Natural horsemanship, specifically the methods taught by Buck Brannaman, have proved to be extremely beneficial to our rescued equines. We’re also now sending horses out to trainers like Joel Conner and Matt Olson who are starting and restarting horses for us with great results. So the decision was made to call Khianna home so we can get acquainted with her once again and assess her for the possibility of going back into training.

Khianna arrived at Safe Harbor today looking and feeling terrific. She’s got some adjusting to do as this was a pretty big lifestyle change for her, but she’s settling in fine so far. No doubt you’ll be seeing photos of her on SAFE’s Tumblr feed in the next few days doing ground work with our volunteer riders! In the meantime, here’s Khianna today, looking good! Supreme thank yous to the Murray family for taking such spectacular care of her for such a long time!!