GERONIMO
Geronimo lives here without his mother, Swimaj, because she was unable to survive injuries she earned from an industry meant to entertain us.
Swimaj spent most of her short life at the racetrack. Horse racing takes perfection; perfect breeding, perfect training, and a perfect jockey, to produce a horse designed for pure speed. A horse thundering around a track can be a beautiful spectacle, but the effort and cost of producing a money winner can push a horse its limits. Swimaj was pushed beyond hers. She was pinfired, a controversial, and some say inhumane, procedure for speeding up the treatment of the stresses of racing. She ended up leaving the racetrack for the final time with crushed knees. Race horses with injured legs rarely return to the track, and a horse designed for speed is good for little else. Swimaj found herself up for auction, but not before she was impregnated to fetch a higher price. Useless to any dressage rider, polo stable, cattle ranch, or jumping stable, she was facing a long ride to the slaughterhouse.
She shared her ride in a trailer with another mare named Alisage. When the trailer gate opened, it was not to a slaughterhouse. It was to the Redwings Horse Sanctuary. Swimaj and Alisage had a new home where they would not be asked to race, jump, or do any kind of work. They were simply asked to be ambassadors for their plight. Redwings, in turn, was asked to care for Swimaj’s coming foal. On April 5, 1994, Geronimo was born.
Unfortunately, things did not go smoothly. Swimaj was young and inexperienced, and wouldn’t stay still to let Mo nurse without help from the Redwings staff. Even tougher was that Mo wasn’t a gentle little foal—he was rough and playful, too much for his injured mother to handle at all.
Mo spent his first one and a half years at Swimaj’s side, but Swimaj’s injury was deteriorating. The very difficult decision was made that her best option was to be removed from her pain forever, and to promise to take care of her colt who had never known such pain. Swimaj was five years old.
We now welcome you to become a sponsor of Geronimo. Perhaps Sam’s sponsors will appreciate their similar ancestries, and will honor Sam’s memory by sponsoring Geronimo.
REDWINGS WEBCAM
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