The One and ONLY Nicky Newman!

This is a story of a great champion. Nicky Newman was a great Quarter Horse that everyone adored. He was a great all around versatile, old western style horse. Nicky's dreams of running barrels, team penning, trail rides, and showing were shattered the day he fractured his pelvis. After Nicky fractured his pelvis there wasn't much he could do other than stand in a stall and heal. This in return made him very depressed. Meanwhile Nicky's owners were consulting with equine experts and trying to decide what the next step was going to be in Nicky's recovery. Expert after expert suggested putting this great champion horse to sleep. Nicky's owners weren't sure what they were going to do to help him, but they knew putting him down was not an option for them.

After deciding euthanasia was not an option for them, the owner's contacted The Healing Barn. They had heard about us through some mutual friends. The first time we all met Nicky Newman he was very hairy and sad looking; you could tell by the look in his big brown eyes that he was very sad. My mom, Nancy, and I began working with Nicky as much as we could. To start with we would work on his energy fields and also walk him around in the arena to get him moving around a little bit. After about a week or two of driving 30 minutes to see him and 30 minutes home, we decided we should ask the owner's if we could move him to our facility. This way we could spend more time working with Nicky. They agreed. Once Nicky was moved to The Healing Barn we began to see some huge improvements. His eyes were brighter and he just seemed to feel better in general. My mom began doing intense Reiki and T-Touch healing sessions while treating him with all natural herbal mixtures. Nicky was showing more and more improvements, until one day he started to look sad again. We began to lose ground with him quickly. At first we weren't sure why he was regressing all of a sudden, so we had a veterinarian examine him. After doing some research and getting the vets test results, we discovered Nicky had symptoms to match EPM.

EPM was a new equine disease and did not have good survival rates at this time. It was so new people didn't know what it really was or how to treat it. Our vet gave us the options, but the medicine was too expensive for us and his owners to buy, plus it only had about a 50% success rate. Back to square one we went; what were we going to do? All along we had been treating Nicky with all natural remedies, so that is exactly what we decided to do. We put Nicky on an all natural herbal mixture to help boost his immune system as well as put him on another herbal mixture to help detoxify his body. Amazingly, we began to see improvements! During the process of all these ups and downs with Nicky, I had completely grown attached and fallen in love with him. Well, what did you expect? This great champion horse and a fourteen year old girl who spend every moment possible together. We very quickly became best friends. Because we had created such a strong bond, my mom talked to Nicky's owner's, and that next Christmas I got one great champion! While Nicky was showing great improvements, he still had a long road ahead of him. So, little by little we continued to inch our way to the finish line.

The finish line was far away, but was reached in August of 2000. In that summer of 2000, Nicky Newman and I took 1st Place out of 300 horses in versatility at the Wood County Junior Fair. Versatility means that we had to compete in six different classes against about 40 other horses and riders that had also qualified to compete out of 300 horses. Pretty remarkable for a horse that couldn't walk 2 years before and was said to be put to sleep. This was the best day we ever had! We had not only shown in six classes back to back against 40 other riders, but we, Nicky and a sixteen year old, had proved all those "experts" wrong. To this day Nicky Newman is STILL the GREAT CHAMPION. At the current age of 23, Nicky Newman is doing great. I have since retired him, but my goddaughter whom is 6 years old has started to show him. This year she went to the Wood County Junior Fair and competed in Pee Wee Showmanship and Pee Wee Walk Trot. They did wonderful together and have many years to come to compete. I have to say Nicky Newman truly is a champion and the love of my life.