23/08/2026
Seraphina
The mare who taught the greatest lesson & gave hope to those with none.
4 years ago, our first 'Registered Rehomer', direct from Parks truck, rolled through the gate.
It was supposed to be Mares & foals, 20 total, all female.
3 beautiful, big, mature mares; Scarlette, Gunhilde & Seraphina stood in that truck with the remnants of their family & a lot of foals/yearlings with no mums, quite a few of which had surprise boy parts!
Scarlett had her yearling daughter M'lass.
Gunhilde, her yearling c**t Gunnar & filly Gudrun still on board in her mummas belly.
Seraphina, had her 2yr old filly Katerina and her yearling c**t Rasmus.
Those 3 strong, beautiful ladies were the ultimate mothers, despite the hell & upheaval they'd just been through, they led their babies off that truck & went back to coax down the newly orphaned babe's that travelled in with them.
Very quickly, Seraphina, set herself as matriarch, open milk bar & all round super Mum.
Seraphina attempted to foster 7 babe's alongside her own.
Every minute of every day, Seraphina clung to the remnants of her family & her adopted baby herd.
Weeks turned to a few months and everyone seemed to have calmed, relaxed & had began to create life routines in their new spaces & herd.
I was still thinking of future placements & training etc etc possible rehoming?
Until the yard day.
I needed to just bring everyone in for a full check over & some extra for anyone that needed something.
Simple, relaxed, no drama, we'd done it 100 times before, it was routine.
Until it wasn't.
It was all going great, simple system.
In a big yard, draught off through the race to small yards in 1s & 2s.
Big mummas stayed in while babe's moved through.
Everyone sorted & I closed the gate.
I don't know what set it all in motion.
A familiar sound?
A colour?
De ja vu happened.
The Mummas lost their minds.
Scarlette attempted to dismantle the yards, Gunhild fully believed she could simply rush through steel panels if she hit hard enough and Seraphina?
Seraphina broke me.
She didn't panic, she didn't fight.
She broke. Mentally.
She let out one anguished scream & just stood staring at the pen of babe's.
In that split second, realisation hit my brain like a freight train.
They thought they were being separated, their babies stripped away & trucked out.
It was all happening to them again.
I'd spent 3 months doing everything I could think of to show those beautiful Mummas they could relax, have hope & live with whoever they had left....in peace & safety.
In that split second I destroyed it all & put them right back to that black hole of grief, despair, fear & misery.
Seraphina showed me what humans had taught her.
With one scream & a broken, despairing look, she showed me.
I've never opened yards, cried so hard or made a pledge with more meaning in my life than I did that day.
I promised Seraphina, she would never face or feel that again.
Ever.
That day, Tir Caim became a complete life sanctuary for all who needed it. No matter what.
I could not, would not, ever allow any horse here to experience that fear of separation or loss again.
I can't do it.
So I don't.
"NO" can be a whole sentence & people don't like "NO" as an answer sometimes.
Now, I have worn the s**t like a Cape, the nasty rumours, slander, criticism & even outright sabotage galore, over the last 4-5 years.
I've been assigned more nasty labels than I can count.
I genuinely don't care.
Peer pressure only works on people with peers.
I don't really have any human peers.
I answer to the horses and they don't give a flying rats crack about feelings on Facebook or potentially profitable trades.
Neither do I.
I care about the horses feelings, I work for them.
5 years ago there was a big s**t storm on the horizon for the brumby.
I saw it.
I knew someone needed to do something.
I was someone.
I could do something.
So I did.
Not enough, I could never do enough or save them all.
But for horses like Seraphina, her sisters & her babe's, we did everything we could & we did it right, for them.
Tir Caim is private, wild living (as much as possible) & exists on wishes & prayers most days. It hard, it's heartbreaking, it's expensive all the time, but it's worth it & its home.
Their home & mine.
We live, learn & build our life together.
My life her isn't normal.
I am not normal.
There is a certain supposedly older & wiser person that likes to tell people I'm a "Half re****ed woman", I'm not all there in the head apparently...
Hmmm...not quite.
There's usually too much going on in my head to be honest!
But i generally don't dribble, I can wipe my own bum quite well & I haven't bitten anyone for years... Oh! and I can count without using all my fingers & toes too!!
But I am a whole serving of Autistic with a big, spicy sprinkle of Adhd, a side dish of Tourette's & a seizure disorder that keeps life interesting during routine tasks.
(Random shut down mode makes driving impossible now)
So yes, I'm weird as all get out & I'm not even slightly interested in being 'social'.
Because i don't understand humans at all.
I have no idea what the future will bring but I know, when the park is empty of wild horses (and it looks like that's happening Australia wide & very quickly) and the last horse is sold from the rehomers yards, that won't be the end of the Brumby.
There will still be life for a sacred, blessed few, lucky enough to find their fate & future in a truly safe home.
In genuine life sanctuary's like HOOFS2010, Forever Free & here at Tir Caim, along with many other quiet, horse focused groups & individuals simply caring for horses without all the fuss, there will still be some brumby left.
Still living well, still living wild, still as free as possible.
This happy little weirdo will still be here with them.
Even if im here alone.
For Seraphina.
For the horses.
The ones this was actually all done for.
