 He was in a position where they asked the vet, you know, because what do we need to do with him? And he said, I'd put him down. You know, he had worked on the horse and he had seen him for quite a while. And, you know, they just didn't really have many options with him. So that's kind of what they concluded. And that's when they asked me about taking him. And anyways, yeah, he's having a good time. He's enjoying life. And, you know, that's what it's all about. Like, he's pretty young still. So he's got a long life ahead of him. You could say Pete and Amanda May have given new meaning to the term put out to pasture. The couple has created a nonprofit group called the Cutting Edge Retirement Foundation for horses in need of a caring home following show careers that ended from injury or old age. It all began four years ago when the Mace took in an abandoned pony. And the little pony was one that my brother and I had saved. She was left alone, had real long feet. We had to cut them off with the saw and that kind of deal and ended up having her for, what was it, 12 years. But we, long story short, we ended up taking in two more ponies. One was blind and the other one had feet similar to the one that we'd cut off. And that was when I was like, well, we should just make this official and try to get help taking care of more of these guys. So I don't think we're gonna whack it open. So he's got a shoeball. Once word got out, Pete and Amanda found her in for almost 30 horses, many of which suffer from various lameness and health issues. As a master farrier, Pete is well equipped to rehab and care for the horses. But he also gets expert help from two vets, Dr. Charlie Buchanan and Dr. Scott Strassnider from the Brazos Valley Equine Hospital. The pair donate their time, vaccinations and drugs to the foundation. We just kind of got involved just by being around, I guess, being available. And then just continue on the work on the horses as they got out of their career as an athlete, moved on to, I guess, a better life now and where they are, just make sure that their quality of life is good as they go through retirement. Excellent cause. Really nice to be a part of a group that thinks about the horse past their athletic career. So being partnered with Charlie, I've been able to see quite a few horses be passed along to another career. A lot of the horses have, not really career ending injuries, but just like any professional athlete, right? They'll get arthritis and they have injuries that affect their career and as they age, those injuries progress and become worse. And then if you don't attend to them, they can become worse. And then you get secondary health problems because they're stressed because they're not healthy and they're lame, chronic pain cause a lot of problems and get ulcers. So if you can address the arthritis in the working sports injuries, you can avoid the secondary complications of medical issues and the quality of life of those horses is a lot better. You know, the benefit of this program is Pete's a great fairy, a great horse shiver. And a lot of the problems they have can be addressed with proper shooing and that makes a huge difference on the soundness of those horses and the chronic injuries. Well, we've got Spooky's Cat Mandu, which a lot of people know him. I believe he earned almost $170,000. We have Widow's Peak, which he won the non-pro Superstakes with Becky Clark. We had Duel and Jules, he passed away, but he had earned over $200,000 and he was a reserve fertility champion. We got old Pudge out there, he's a world champion calf horse. Yeah, he's got knees that big, you know? So it's neat having different things to work with and different injuries to maintain because it just, well, it helps my knowledge and I'm able to experiment a little bit if something's not working I can make adjustments and kind of find what works for each horse as an individual. The Mays use most of their 23 acres to accommodate the horses. A friend lets them use another 20 acres down the road, but they still cannot keep up with demand. So they started an adoption program to continue helping more horses. The numbers grew so fast and we realized that we had several horses that were low enough maintenance and that could be good horses for other people either as a companion horse or a yard ornament or even a trail horse or something for the kids to ride. So that's when we started to look into adopting some out and we've been successful there. We've had some great people adopt some of the horses and they've gone on. It's almost a completion of the process because with the number of horses we have here we can't give them as much individual attention as someone who adopts them. After donating some hay to the retirement foundation, dog trainers Pat and Kim Surio decided they had some acres to spare and a horse that needed some company. I feel strongly that horses shouldn't be alone and so he was just kind of miserable. He had always had friends and unfortunately his one buddy collicked and died last year. So he just kind of moped around for a while and we felt like getting him a friend would be really beneficial to him. And we were in a position with our property that we had and we could accommodate having more head of horse on the property. So it just seemed like a natural fit. Our Frankie needed a buddy and we came here looking for a buddy and we ended up leaving with three which is fantastic and I wish we could take more. So how did one turn into three? You fell in love with three horses? Absolutely, we came here looking for one for a pasture mate and then I thought to myself oh she's not gonna let me get away with just getting one. So I figured out I had my head we're gonna get two and then we kind of had two that we were looking at and then I saw another one that I really liked and I'm like well if we're getting two we might as well get three. So and then I'm like okay well maybe that's three is good for now and we left with three and we just absolutely love them. How does it make you guys feel knowing that you've given three horses a good home? I can't see coming down our drive and not having them there. I can't imagine life without it. It's been a win-win. It's like they see us as them helping them out but they've helped us out. They've made our lives better. It's a little overwhelming sometimes just trying to get it all done but it's really a great feeling at the end of the day and like I develop a relationship with these horses over the years whether I'm working on them in the barns or they're living here so it's oh no you just get attached to them and you get ones that are your favorites and it's really, it's nice to see them be able to be horses and live that kind of life you know. Pete and Amanda say they wouldn't have been able to operate the foundation without outside support and they welcome any donations of cash, feed or medical supplies or interest in adopting a horse.