Your horse has some physical problems that keep you from doing the kind of riding you want to do. Realistically, he’s not saleable. You’re willing to donate him or put him up for adoption, but how can you find a good situation for him?

That all-too-common quandary was the spark for a new Web site, DonateMyHorse.com, that seeks to match horses and adopters nationwide. The site is the brainchild of Meggan Hill-McQueeney, a NARHA-certified Advanced Therapeutic Riding Instructor who runs the Cowboy Dreams therapeutic riding program at Kickapoo Farms in Barrington, Illinois.

“We get calls every week from people who want to donate aged or unsound ponies and horses to our program. They’re looking to do the right thing,” Meggan says. “I have to tell them ‘no’, but that doesn’t mean the horse isn’t suitable as a companion or for some other situation. Until now I’ve had no place to refer them.”

While the listings posted on Donate My Horse.com aren’t limited to free horses, Meggan’s goal is to provide a central place where would-be donors and needy adopters such as therapeutic riding programs, camps or equine blood banks can find each other. Horse owners can post text ads for free; there are charges for photo and video ads. The Web site is set up so that organizations and individuals looking for horses can plug in criteria and search for the right horses for their programs.

The site does not screen donors or adopters. “It’s the responsibility of both parties to make sure everything is legitimate,” Meggan says. That means an owner needs to be sure that an adopter will use the horse as he or she says, and the adopter needs to be sure the horse is as represented.

Elaine Pascoe

Reprinted with permission from Practical Horseman magazine, February 2007. For more information, visit www.practicalhorsemanmag.com