NORTH ANDOVER - Hunter has seen his share of bad days.

The horse's withers, the bones where the neck and back join, have been broken. His hair is just now covering the scars from various cuts and scratches. Last year he was headed for slaughter.

But to Anastasia Beechin he is the most beautiful horse she has ever seen.

The 11-year-old from Wakefield saved up every penny from birthdays, Christmas and her paper route for more than two years to rescue the horse from slaughter and keep him for her own.

"I love him even though he has scars," she said. "I didn't want a new horse. There are horses that cost up to $30,000, but I just wanted him."

Anastasia learned about the horse through Dora Ferrari, a dressage instructor at Windkist Equestrian Center in North Andover where Anastasia has been taking riding lessons for three years.

Anastasia had saved $2,100, but horses, especially well-trained ones, cost more than $10,000. So Ferrari steered Anastasia toward Another Chance 4 Horses, an organization in Pennsylvania that saves horses who are headed to slaughter.

"A lot of people don't realize that perfectly good horses are in slaughter pens," Ferrari said.

It's a mystery why Hunter, a bay thoroughbred gelding, ended up in a slaughter pen. The horse is trained to be ridden and does well with children. It's a gentle horse that doesn't mind people and petting. He's 16 hands tall, a large horse even though his ribs are still visible. The horse, which has been recovering for about six months, still needs to gain more than 100 pounds.

Horses end up in slaughter pens for various reasons - a family can no longer afford them or the horse becomes injured or sick and the owner doesn't want to pay for rehabilitation. Mary Martin, who works with New England Equine Rescue, which helped bring Hunter to Massachusetts, said sometimes families don't even realize the horse is headed to slaughter when they sell it to someone.

When Hunter was found at auction, he was so weak that several people had to pick him up and help him out. Ferrari said he was just "skin and bones," and needed to gain at least 300 pounds. He rehabilitated for four months before making the trip to North Andover six weeks ago, arriving two days before Anastasia's birthday last month.

 

The two are a perfect match.

"It happened instantly," said Anastasia's mom, Cindy. "Like magic."

After being at Windkist for six weeks, the horse is settling in. Anastasia spends four nights a week and all day Saturday at the center, spending as much time as she can with the horse outside of homework and her paper route.

When she isn't taking him into the indoor arena for a ride, she is brushing his thin skin with the softest brush she could find, kissing his nose and nestling in his neck.

Anastasia has loved horses since she could remember, filling her room with posters and checking out every horse book she could find from the library.

Hunter, whose full name is Hunter My Hero, is her dream.

"I always wanted a horse of my own," she said.