By 
Pistol Painted, also known as Pistols and Roses, had been at rest due to a sesamoid fracture; The vet’s advice is to let your ankle heal and then be like new in a few months. He was a talented racehorse; earning $ 268,327 in earnings with 17 wins, 12 spots, and 12 shows. He had last raced on February 7, but by June 7 he had appeared at a New York killpen, with the letter ‘N’ sprayed in red along both sides of his body, the buyer’s last name designation. who bought this 10 years ago. Old gray gelding for slaughter for sale as horse meat for human consumption in Europe.
However, the Painted Pistol story did not end in a Canadian slaughterhouse as it seemed destined. Unlike 17,000 thoroughbreds annually, whose bad luck, negligent and indifferent trainers and greedy owners, the Painted Pistol story defied the odds. Shortly after his last run and his broken ankle, his owner had just left Pete (as they called him) on the farm until a breeder in Northeast Pennsylvania offered to trade Pete for a thoroughbred weaning. Off Pete left, but he didn’t stay long at the new farm and was soon taken to the Unidilla, New York auction. It was purchased privately, but for inexplicable reasons, less than 2 weeks after that, it once again ended up in the same sale. Once again it was bought by a private party, but returned to the same auction for the third time, however, Pete’s luck apparently ran out. This time there were no private buyers bidding for him, and he was tagged for purchase by a local killbuyer, a contract buyer for a horse slaughterhouse in Canada.
Pete was taken to the designated staging area to “kill” horses, but earlier that day a local volunteer for a horse rescue had been involved in the rescue of a different thoroughbred gelding. As she was leaving, the killer yelled at her from his home. “Hey Lisa, can you take that gray too?” He told her that he had the papers for that particular horse, and that the horse had made a lot of money as well as being friendly and very calm. “He is too good a horse for meat,” commented the matador, so Lisa went to the kitchen while the matador prepared the paperwork for the life of the gray gelding. And there were Pete’s Jockey Club papers, the horse at stake, the multi-award winning horse, and one that had raced at the Woodlawn Memorial against Fusaichi Pegasus.
Within days, his bail was lifted and Peter began his rehabilitation in a Palestinian Authority rescue, Another Chance 4 Horses. They bathed him to remove the red paint that designated him as meat, they vet checked him, pampered him, fed him, and when his ankle healed, they worked and retrained him. He loves to nibble on clover, but unless the little purple flowers are attached to the stems, he just grabs it, turns his head, and randomly tosses the stems to the ground. Every time Pete sees Christy, co-founder of Another Chance 4 Horses, who comes with the flowers, she screams with a loud whinny, wrinkles her upper lip, snatches the flowers from his hands, and chews happily.
His sesamoid fracture has healed. He loves the attention of the visitors; his once matted coat with the red “N” is bright and elegant. His former owners never blinked to help Pete, but his past doesn’t seem to have left him behind. Pete lives in the present, like all horses, and it is the humans who have brought him here who promise him a secure and cherished future.