RESCUE SHELTER TAKING SHAPE OFF FM 147

Jamie Hoover has spent the past six months transforming 84 acres overgrown with brush and mesquite into

Jamie Hoover, president of Becky’s Hope Horse Rescue, works with a pair of horses at the shelter’s ranch off FM 147 near Shady Grove Cemetery. The organization has taken in about 19 horses and will begin adopting them out this spring. Journal photo/David Stone a horse rescue shelter. The results are impressive.

“When I started in July, you couldn’t see anything in here but trees and brush,” he said last weekend inside a small camp trailer he calls home. “We’ve got rid of a lot of brush and have been building fences. It’s coming along.”

“We” is Jamie and his mother, Janice, a full-time H-E-B employee who is devoted to helping Jamie and the horses on her days off.

Although the Hoovers have been concentrating on getting the shelter ranch in shape and fenced, they also have taken time to rescue a horse or two.

Janice Hoover of Marlin works with a horse Saturday at Becky’s Hope Horse Rescue. Although she works full-time for H-E-B, Janice helps her son, Jamie, at the shelter’s ranch on her days off. Journal photo David Stone “Right now we have 19 horses,” Jamie said. “Word is getting out, and we’re starting to get a lot of calls.” Fifteen horses have been relocated to the ranch off FM 147 since May.

“Some of these horses were actually rescued by other people, and they really didn’t have a place to keep them,” he said. “We took some in after their owners passed away.”

Jamie plans to start finding homes for the animals this spring. Because he has been busy clearing land and building fences and sheds, he hasn’t had as much time to spend working with the animals as he would like.

“We had some calls from folks who want to adopt a horse,” he said. “But most of them still need some work. I want to be able to match the right horse with the right person. The main thing is, I don’t want these horses to go back to the kind of conditions they came from.”

Jamie has found time in his busy schedule to nurture injured horses back to shape.

“Right now, all of the horses are healthy and all have had their shots,” he said.

While Jamie and Janice have been the manual labor transforming the wooded pasture into a horse rescue ranch, they have had help in the form of donations.

“People have been very generous,” Jamie said. “We had one girl who donated money to the shelter instead of buying Christmas gifts. We’ve had corral panels donated, a shed donated … we’re fixing to take a road trip to Pennsylvania to bring back a round pen that has been donated. It’s ours, we just have to get it back here.”

Also, doctors at the Heart of Texas Equine Center in Waco and at Texas A&M have donated services to help mend injured and sick horses.

Jamie said that once he has a horse ready for adoption, he will post a photo of the animal on the rescue’s Web site -- www.beckyshope. com.

“People can go online and choose a horse,” Jamie said. “They can sponsor a horse if they would like, and we will send them a newsletter and photo updates of the animal. We already have some folks who are sponsoring horses, and the money they send is used to feed the horse and help with medical care.”

One sponsor, who used to own one of the rescue’s horses but was having trouble caring for it after her husband passed away, sends money to pay for a treat the horse has been eating every morning for years -- Honey Buns.

Although plenty of fence- and barn-work remains, the shelter is far enough along that Jamie and Janice can start working more with the horses.

“What we really need now are volunteers, and you really don‘t have to have a lot of horse experience to help,” he said. “We’ll find something for you to do. We need people to cut brush, build more fences, work with the horses, even brush the animals.”

Jamie said he has been contacted by the Baylor equestrian team and Groesbeck High School ag instructors about helping out at the shelter. Groups or individuals who would like to volunteer at the shelter can call Jamie at (254) 644- 2849.

To raise money for the shelter, organizers are hosting a Texas Holdem’ poker tournament on Saturday, Jan. 17, at the Texas Star Event Facility, 11621 Reeder Road in Dallas. For details, call Kevin Glass at (940) 312-9863. Proceeds from the poker tournament will benefit Becky’s Hope.

How it started

A ride down Business 6 in Marlin back in May 2008 changed Jamie’s life forever. It also changed the life of a starving mare.

The horse, later named Becky, was standing by the highway near Falls on the Brazos County Park when Jamie passed by. He immediately hit the brakes.

Becky had broken a chain that had restricted her to a grassless junkyard. She had no food or water, and pus was oozing from infected wounds behind her withers. Her entire left side was black with dried blood, and her teeth had been shattered from a blow to the mouth.

Becky was a mess, and unless she received medical care, she was going to die.

Jamie contacted the Falls County Sheriff’s Office to report the incident, but he didn’t stop there.

“She was in bad shape and needed immediate help,” Hoover said. “I decided then and there I wasn’t going to let this animal die. I wasn’t going to walk away.”

The Sheriff’s Office gave the horse’s owners several days to provide medical care and suitable accommodations for the animal, and Jamie kept a close eye on the case.

After six days passed and Becky still hadn’t received medical attention, Jamie’s persistence led authorities to give the owners an ultimatum: Give the horse up or face cruelty charges.

Becky was at her new home later that day.

“When I got her to a veterinarian, she weighed about 450 pounds,” Jamie said. “Best we can tell, she’s somewhere between 5 and 10 years old. She was so dehydrated that I could pull her loose skin to a point and it would stay that way.”

A year later, Becky weighed a healthy 960 pounds and her wounds have healed. Now, nearly two years after being rescued, she romps in the pastures with other horses who call the rescue home.

Jamie’s experience with Becky led to the creation of the horse rescue organization aptly named Becky’s Hope.

Want to help?

Donations to Becky’s Hope can be made online at www.beckyshope. com. The organization is using Pay Pal to process payment by credit card and check, or they may be mailed to Becky's Hope Horse Rescue, P.O. Box 29168, Dallas, TX 75229. Donations are tax deductible.