Spun Hard Stables

05/23/2026

The excitement never stops around the farm! Two weeks ago, a good friend of ours lost her mama cat. Her approx 10 day old kittens were in dire need. I’ve never bottle fed kittens before, but I was willing to try anything to help the little things. They were very dehydrated & exhausted after being without their mom for several days. I was worried they might not make it (most kittens will die after that many hours away from their mama cat), but they are little fighters! 💪

Everyone, please help me welcome Ivy, Bagheera, Cammy, Snowball, & Mouse. My little fosters for the next few weeks until they’re big enough to go back to their family. 🥹

This was the day they arrived here (May 13). They are tiny tiny tiny! Only a few ounces each.

04/23/2026

✨Transformation time✨ It has been exactly 3 months since Luigi arrived at our farm. The Paso Fino gelding was one or two days away from taking the long trailer ride to Mexico to be slaughtered, awaiting his fate at a Tennessee holding pen. Hoping someone, anyone, would bail him out.

We did. We named him Luigi. 💚

The little horse who stepped off the trailer after the 6 hour ride was VERY skiddish about everything, super hard to catch, flinched anytime you reached for him, & needed some serious weight added to his skinny frame. We have taken our time getting him adjusted to his new life. Our horses have done an excellent job of welcoming him to the herd. He is coming around more & more. A few days ago, he even walked right up to me to let me put his halter on him. 🥰

We can’t wait to see how Luigi continues to thrive here. Let’s hear it from our Paso Fino fans in the comments below. He’s our first ever Paso, so we have a lot to learn about this unique little breed.

04/11/2026

Our paddock upgrade project is done! ✅ 9 acres for the boys to enjoy, & we are now set up to be able to rotate paddocks to keep the grass healthier. Our fields were planted in corn & soybeans for years, & we just transitioned them to pasture last spring. Because of the fast turnaround, there were lots of weeds & even some burrs to deal with. We are so excited that we will have healthy, lush pastures growing in now!

Thanks to Chris at AgLime Lawn & Land Services LLC for helping us make this dream a reality!

04/11/2026

Big day at the farm! We absolutely love Chris at AgLime Lawn & Land Services! From building a base around the new barn to keep the horses clean, dry, & out of the mud all winter, to his latest project helping us to replant & improve our pastures, he has become a valuable part of our ecosystem here.

03/02/2026

It’s an exciting day! Our Son of Spun, Helix, is celebrating his 10th birthday today! 🎂🎈 Send him your well wishes in the comments! ⤵️

🐸 Fun fact: Helix is actually a very rare leap day baby! He was born February 29, 2016. So if we are going by his *actual* birthdays, he’s only 2 years old & wouldn’t even get a birthday this year. But we won’t make him miss out on the fun!

He is celebrating with lots of love & with his favorite treats, sweet potatoes & carrots! 🍠 🥕 And enough goodies to make any horse feel spoiled.

10 years old - still handsome as a young c**t, still a total ham, still convinced everything is about him (because it is 😂.) He rules the roost here at The Place to Be Farm in Indiana, & his herd mates do his bidding. 😈

Helix, registered by the The Jockey Club as
Bibliotecario, is a former racehorse sired by Hard Spun out of a Rahy mare. He sold for $75,000 at the 2021 Keeneland yearling sale with high hopes for a racing career. He was a winner at Gulfstream Park in Florida before his career was cut short with retirement, & he was taken in by the fabulous Track to Trail Thoroughbreds- rehab, rehoming, and rescue of ex-racehorses program who helped him learn a new skill set & be ready for a forever home. A huge thanks to their team, especially to the absolute rockstar Cynthia, who poured so much time & patience into finding him the right home.

He’s now the star of the farm here, & we sure do love the big, goofy boy! He’s been in Indiana about 10 months now. He greets us every day with his head over the gate, flipping up his lip to give us a big smile & showing off that Thoroughbred upper lip tattoo. What a ham. 🥰

Happy birthday, my dear! 🩵

02/14/2026

Wishing everyone a happy Valentine’s Day! 💘 Featuring Helix (our Son of Spun) & Jeff.

02/14/2026

Cold days, warm hearts. Happy Valentine’s Day from our rescue horse herd 💘

02/13/2026

Here is our Son of Spun, featured on the Track to Trail Thoroughbreds- rehab, rehoming, and rescue of ex-racehorses page. They are the organization that picked him up from the racetrack after he retired, retrained him, & helped me (Chelsey Burris) to bring him home from Florida to Indiana. Track to Trail is a really cool place - they use off track Thoroughbreds to teach kids all about horses, from caring for them to riding. 🐴

Another Adopter update!

This is Booker- Bibliotecario who adopted out about a year ago! They got 16 inches in Indiana! His barn name is now Helix!

Can you see how much he’s loving his whole set up?!? Fabulous Mom. Fabulous friends. And no hurricanes! Horses deal w the cold much better than we do!

I cannot thank everyone enough who’s helped me with these horses so that they could go on to live their best lives

Over the years ive had more thsn 100 horses needing help come thru these doors! Mostly Thoroughbred, but they’ve been quite a few others as well

❤️❤️❤️🐎❤️❤️❤️

02/11/2026

Update on the kill pen Paso Fino - He let me touch him for the first time!

Here’s how it’s been going:
📆 Day 1 - “Where am I?!” After his 7 hour trailer ride home, he had a busy day of exploring the paddocks & getting acquainted with his new horse friends Jeff the gaited horse, & our Thoroughbred Son of Spun (Jockey Club name Bibliotecario, adopted from Track to Trail Thoroughbreds- rehab, rehoming, and rescue of ex-racehorses.)

📆 Day 2 - “Get the hell away from me.” Would hurry or even trot, his tiny little Paso Fino trot, the opposite direction when I got in his general vicinity. Watched me suspiciously as I interacted with the other horses.

📆 Day 3 - “Maybe you’re okay, you do bring me food.” Let me stand near him while he ate. Anytime I would take a step toward him, he’d walk quickly away & look at me from a safe distance. I respected this & gave him space as soon as he took a step back. Once he realized I would step back if he would, he stayed closer to me. He might take a step away, then when I mirrored him, he would step forward again & continue eating.

📆 Day 4 - “I’m starting to let my guard down.” Allowed me to sit beside him while he ate. Still would step back if I got too close, but his bubble was getting smaller where he was almost allowing me into it. Sitting on the ground & letting him approach me seemed to make him much more comfortable than for me to stand up or for me to approach him. He got close enough to sniff me, & I didn’t reach out to try to pet him when he did.

📆 Day 5 - “Did you say cookies?” He allowed me touch him for the first time on this day by taking a treat out of my hand!! I caught this moment on video, so that’s what I’m sharing here. 🥰 This is a big milestone for us!

If you missed it, check out his super anxious sale video, which kinda made me fall in love with him, on my Reddit post about him here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Horses/s/rEQjeTDRUO

To recap:
I took a chance on a 14-year-old Paso Fino gelding, who had wound up out of options with a Tennessee horse trader. His history is unknown, other than his past owner said they trail rode him, & he’s fine with a group. He was so uncomfortable & anxious in the sale video (linked above), he would ONLY walk backward or canter forward. His chance of going to slaughter was high - the next truck was slated to take him, & no buyers had shown interest even though he was very cheap. When I reached out, he had two to three days before he was going to Mexico.

I knew he was definitely going to be a project. Something about him made me think he was worth the risk…maybe it was those worried eyes, or that bright star, or the fact that he looks about as anxious as I always feel.

Flash forward to now. I decided to take the chance on him. Had him shipped to Indiana from Tennessee sight unseen. He has been settling in & although he is very skittish, he seems like a nice boy. I will continue to let him dictate the pace of our interactions. Our immediate goal is getting him comfortable enough to be caught & haltered, so that the farrier can come out to remove his last remaining shoe & trim him, & so my vet can check him over & give him all his shots. He drops sooo much grain that I know his teeth badly need floated. As soon as he’s okay with being caught, we’ll get those taken care of.

Bringing home a new horse can be stressful, especially if the horse is a more anxious type. You just have to go slow & steady to build that great foundation with your new horse! Patience is the best way to win any nervous animal (horse, dog, cat, etc) over. Even though it sometimes feels like it’s taking forever, it’s so worth it.

Everyone, please say hi to Son of Spun’s new brother Luigi! 👋

01/25/2026

POV: You live in the path of the big winter storm & you have horses! ❄️

Here in Indiana, we were predicted to get 10-12 inches of snow, but it sure looks like it will be more. This was at bedtime last night. Also, this is our first video featuring our full herd of rescue horses, since our new Paso Fino horse Luigi just arrived here a couple days ago! 

For our friends in warm weather areas, you may have never seen your horse with a “snow blanket” on before. This is a GREAT sign in cold weather. It means your horse’s fur is doing a perfect job at keeping the horse insulated, because their body heat isn’t even making it to the end of their hair to melt the snow. This is how a horse with a thick heavy coat is meant to function. I don’t ever blanket any of my horses that have nice thick natural coats, because they stay plenty warm nature’s way. It’s important to give plenty of extra hay in temps like this. With snow on the ground, there isn’t any grass for them to pick at, & hay keeps their internal furnaces running to keep them warm.

Wishing everyone safety & warmth during this storm!