EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — A mother and daughter are giving an abandoned horse a better life after rescuing him from the Franklin Mountains.
Manni Sandoval and her daughter Xochitl Montano are volunteers at El Paso Animal Services. Telling KTSM after they rescued him, the vet asked Sandoval if she would be interested in meeting him.
And little did she know she was going to fall in love with him and name him Franklin.
“I happen to have a friend who owns a beautiful private boarding ranch, and I gave her a call, and I said, “What do you think?” and she accepted. She took the risk along with my family to raise him. So, he’s had around-the-clock care there,” Sandoval said.
With the long list of people in the Borderland community, Franklin has received unconditional love. From being extremely skinny and afraid of humans, Sandoval says he is a majestic beast.
“There were several people who called him in, including a high school, a principal at Chapin, and they called in, and several people went out there to rescue him. There was even a state vet involved. I just learned today that there were also students involved in the process.”
Sandoval says while they hope in a few years he will be ridable, their focus is his health.
“For his future at the boarding ranch where he is currently, we are going to give it a month or two. He still has another procedure coming up with the vet. Once that is done, the boarding ranch will be training him. Currently, he is learning commands; he’s learning how to, you know, walk, run, lunge, be kind to humans.”
While there’s no answer about how Franklin ended up stranded in the Franklin Mountains, he is now living his best life by eating, running, and gaining back his muscle mass.
