Ferdinand is a thoroughbred gelding and arrived at DER in August of 2016 as a four year old. He had been raced several times and won a couple of races. When he stopped running as fast, he found himself standing in a kill pen waiting to ship to Mexico for slaughter. When we pulled him just a day before he was scheduled to ship, he was in terrible shape. He was extremely underweight and malnourished. He had very bad feet with abscesses in both front hooves. We put him on a refeeding program and after several months, we eventually got his weight back up and he got his health back. His coat got its shine back and his feet grew back strong and healthy. 2017 was his lucky year when his young new owner fell in love with him and adopted him. They have a special bond and we couldn’t be happier for the two of them.