By Dylan Geuther
11th grade, T.F. Riggs High School, Pierre, S.D.

Anne Ziolkowski grabbed a handful of feed and approached a wire-fence paddock with its odd assortment of horses, who slogged through the mud and mist toward her.

An iron-barred gate led into the paddock. Its wooden-beam frame held the words “Trail’s End.”
If not for Ziolkowski, the horses inside the paddock might have been at their trail’s end after no longer being able to serve as rodeo horses.

They were retired and a rodeo friend of hers was looking for a safe place where the horses could live out the remainder of their lives.

She took in her first horse named “Buck” 15 years ago when the animal was no longer able to perform in rodeos.

Ziolkowski said the horse got its name because it was a “buckskin.”

The horse’s teeth were in bad condition because a drought caused a loss of grass in Wyoming.
“Teeth shows the age,” she said. “If they are bad, they are going to have problems for the rest of their life.”

Sometimes the old horses eat alfalfa cubes soaked in water. Their teeth are in such terrible shape, in some cases, they can’t chew the food, she said.

She cares for 10 former rodeo horses now. Only three are younger than the age 27. Only one is not from the same rodeo man who gave her Buck.

Caring for the aging horses comes with some challenges.

She can’t pick up anything weighing more than 5 pounds for the next seven weeks because she had back surgery. That has made her cut back her daily routine with the horses, but that doesn’t stop her from loving them.

The relationship with her horses goes both ways.

On a bad day, when she sees them, it just flips her day “upside down” and makes it better, she said.

“The common thing they give you is unconditional love,” she said. “If you love them, they will in return, love you back.”

The horses include Kickapoo, a thoroughbred and kind of a “scaredy cat,” she said. BA, “stands for ‘Big Ass,’ not “bad attitude,” she said.

Pinto is known as the “Energizer Bunny,” and at first was afraid of his own shadow. Now he swipes food from other horses, she said.

Pinto has a cancerous eye, so he wears a metallic-colored mesh mask to keep the sun out, which has helped because it hasn’t gotten worse for the past two years, she said.

Highmore, approximately 30, was ill, and Anne didn’t think he would make it last winter. But she spent countless nights with him, and he prevailed, she said.

But Rainbow, called “Paint” when she got him, is 33 years old and her favorite. She taught him how to walk up to a set of stairs so she could mount him because he towers over her.