When a Texas trainer falls hard for the adopted horse she’s working with, the duo become a matched pair.
Jodi Brassard was the last to know. The bay horse she was training to compete with in the 2015 Bluebonnet Rescue Horse Training Challenge, hosted by Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society, and had been a solid student for nearly four months. The day was approaching when Brassard had to compete, and then adopt out and say goodbye to her unexpected friend. She didn’t realize how far “Keeva” had captured her heart.
“I started wanting to keep her about a month out from our show,” says Brassard, an Austin, Texas, native who works on horses doing Chinese acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. “But I thought that adopting her meant that we were disqualified from competing in the challenge. But I wanted her so bad I didn’t care. I told my husband, ‘I have to keep her. I’m in love with her.’ And he said, ‘Oh I knew that the first week.’
“I asked the people who owned the barn where she was boarded if I could keep her there ‘forever,’ and they said, ‘Oh, honey, we knew she wasn’t going anywhere a long time ago.’ Apparently I was the last one to say it out loud. She’s been my best friend ever since.”
Keeva was 5 years old and greener than grass when Brassard met her. The horse was found as a stray in San Antonio, Texas, along with several other horses. She was skinny, but otherwise healthy. After six months with a foster family, Brassard took her trailer to go pick up her new project. Although she didn’t load right away, which Brassard expected, the rest of the haul was smooth.
The two got right to work and Keeva accepted everything to which Brassard introduced her.
“She was a total dream to work with,” she recalls.
Keeva and Brassard prepared to compete against other professional trainers in trail, a body conditioning class and freestyle class. They were able to compete in the Bluebonnet Rescue Horse Training Challenge despite the “foster failure.” They placed third.
“I remember doing the freestyle, and there was about five second left on my music. And I remember crying and reaching down to give her hug.”
It wasn’t until a year after owning Keeva that Brassard learned about her special horse’s name.
“Her first foster mom, who’s of Irish heritage, named her,” she says. “Turns out the name ‘Keeva’ is of Celtic-Gaelic origin and means ‘sweet and gentle.’ And it suits her.”
Since her adoption three years ago, Keeva continues to prove her worth and work ethic. She enjoys working cattle and has been a steadfast mount walking in the Grand Entry at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo.
Brassard says, “She’s proven to me that an adopted horse can do the same thing, if not better, than a papered horse can do.”
Learn more about Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society based in College Station, Texas, and its annual rescue horse training challenge at bluebonnetequine.org. They are partners in The Right Horse Initiative, aiming to increase equine adoptions.
To learn more about the The Right Horse Initiative, and to submit your own successful adoption story, visit therighthorse.org.
