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"The
horse is God's gift to mankind."
~ Arabian Proverb
The Horse Who Didn't Come to Dinner profiles twelve extraordinary horses rescued from slaughter by courageous, compassionate people. In turn, these horses transformed their liberator's life. They won the Kentucky Derby, an Olympic Silver Medal, world championships, millions of dollars, healed the handicapped, and inspired their human saviors to greatness.
The Horse Who Didn't Come to Dinner is a compelling, up-lifting book that addresses a serious social problem in a palatable way. Last year 70,000 horses were brutally slaughtered for human consumption in Europe and Asia. Itšs a myth that only old, worn-out nags end up on a dinner table at $15.00 per pound. The majority are magnificent creatures in the prime of their lives. Wild Mustangs, show horses, racehorses, pets and even childrenšs camp ponies are commonly slaughtered in front of a line of other terrified victims.
The Horse Who Didn't Come to Dinner is an exquisitely photographed coffee-table book and an expanded, companion book to a documentary of the same name. The book profiles twelve true-life stories, and the documentary contains five. Each heartwarming success story has been carefully selected for its power and symbolism. Both book and documentary focus on the spiritually transforming nature of horses while educating the reader and viewer about the unifying concept: protecting horses from slaughter.
"Horses
change lives. They give our young
people confidence and self-esteem.
They provide peace and tranquility to troubled souls -- they give us hope!"
~ Toni
Robinson
"A
horse, a horse, my Kingdom for a horse!"
~ William Shakespeare
Youšll
remember Colleen loved drawing horses.
Shešs convinced she was born with the Celtic horse-lover's gene. As a child, her incessant pleas for a
horse of her own ultimately convinced her parents to buy her a fourteen-hand
buckskin pony. Tommy was probably
a Mustang, but no one knows for sure.
What is known is that Tommy could out jump horses twice his size and he
and Colleen won countless competitions.
He was her best friend, spiritual advisor, personal trainer and
psychotherapist for twenty-five years.
Tommy expressed the depth of their connection just before he died at age
thirty, by pacing and pawing at the backdoor for hours, collapsing the moment
she appeared, leaving her forever with his gift of love.
Then, divine fate led
Colleen to an Azteca (Quarter Horse/Andalusian) gelding who wasn't even halter
broke by age four. He won her
heart when he walked up to her in a pasture and put his big horsey nose up to
hers and sniffed her for five minutes.
The intensity of the strange horse's nostrils millimeters from her own,
his warm breath on her face, brought her heart to her throat. The
Aztecašs breeder, Kimi Peck, had rescued hundreds of horses from slaughter,
which influenced her decision to sell Tír-nan-Og, as he was later called, to
Colleen for less than someone else offered, because she knew Colleen would
never sell him.
Meeting Kimi was an eye opener. Even though Colleen had been a horse
owner virtually all her life, she was blissfully unaware of the realities of
horse slaughter until Kimi took her to slaughter auctions and shared horror
stories she'll never forget. As a
result, the germ of an idea was born. Further influenced by two books Colleen fell in love with as
a teenager, Come On Seabiscuit, the
precursor to Laura Hillenbrand's bestseller, and Snowman, the true story of a rescued slaughter-bound horse
who became a national show jumping champion, her brainchild has grown into a
full-fledged quest entitled, The Horse Who Didnšt Come to Dinner.