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When Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, New Orleans and the surrounding areas were all but demolished. More than 1,800 people lost their lives during the storm and more than $150 billion in economic damages were incurred in Southern Louisiana and Mississippi.
But in the midst of this tragedy, fate brought a New Hampshire eventer and a run-of-the-mill carriage horse together after he was rescued from the flooding streets of New Orleans. As the rider later found out, this horse was anything but ordinary.
When Kami Wolk heard about the horrible situation that the area horses were in after Hurricane Katrina hit, she decided that she wanted to make the journey from her hometown of Mount Vernon, NH to Louisiana to help the rescued horses.
“We all wanted to help,” Wolk explained. “So my friends and I packed up the trailer and headed out.”
There were nearly 100 rescued equines being housed at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, LA, and the number of volunteers and the amount of supplies they had to work with was far below what was needed to care for the horses, donkeys, and mules – some of whom were injured during the storm. So as quickly as they could pull everything together, Kami and several of her friends loaded up a trailer with horse supplies (buckets, lead ropes, medical supplies, etc.) and headed down to the Louisiana.
“It was chaos,” Wolk said. “Everyone was doing the best they could to take care of all these horses, but it was quite a sight to take in.
”Once Kami and her friends got settled and into the routine of caring for the rescued horses, she found herself growing particularly attached to a young, tri-colored pinto horse named Howard. By talking to some of the friends that she made after arriving at the Lamar-Dixon Center, Kami found out all about the gelding’s heartbreaking beginning and stunning tale of survival.
“Howard was actually a carriage horse in New Orleans with the Mid-City Carriage Company,” Wolk explained. “He was only two at the time and he had been bought off the slaughter truck. The paired him up with Mr. Big, an older horse, and he gave carriage rides throughout the city.
“Since he came off the slaughter truck, we’re not really sure exactly what breed he is, but we are thinking a Percheron and Paint cross…he’s got a huge head!”
When the Mid-City Carriage Co. realized how bad Katrina was expected to be, they began evacuating their horses and mules to a farm outside the city. Twenty-seven horses were able to be evacuated to the Lamar-Dixon Center, but twenty-two were left behind when the trailers could no longer reach their stables. Howard and Mr. Big were among those horses. Luckily for them, two of their caretakers refused to leave without the horses, and that would prove to save their lives.
“The horses ended up standing in the stable in belly-deep water for quite a long time,” Wolk continued. “As soon as they were able to, the caretakers moved all of the remaining horses to higher ground at a local park.”
That park would be the horses’ home for the next week. The caretakers remained with them for the entire time, trudging relentlessly through chest-high water to be sure the horses ate and drank fresh water, and trying to keep them as healthy as possible, despite the circumstances.
Howard, Mr. Big and the rest of the horses and mules remained stranded at the park with their caretakers until September 4 when they were finally able to be transported to the Lamar-Dixon Center. When they arrived, they were unloaded from the trailer, put through a medical check and treated for any ailments, and then taken to the stalls where they would live for the next few months.
Sadly, three out of the twenty-two horses did not survive the rescue. Mr. Big was one of those three.
“So now Howard was two, all alone, and in a strange place,” Wolk said. “He had no idea what was going on.”
“Horses got sour being in the stalls so much,” she explained. “They were used to being out and walking around for much of the day, so we tried our best to keep them as happy as we could.”
Throughout the time that Kami remained at the Lamar-Dixon Center, she formed a strong attachment to Howard and was quite sad to leave the cheeky little gelding, but she knew she had to return to her life in New Hampshire. So she packed her belongings and headed home.
As the months passed, New Orleans was slowly cleaned up and things started to return to near-normality. And although Kami kept in touch with the friends she had made in Louisiana, she had picked up her life where she left it prior to the disaster.
But fate was at it again.
In several months later, Kami and a few of her family members drove down to Florida to close up her grandfather’s cottage.
“I was thinking a lot about the horses in New Orleans and how they were doing, so I convinced my family to take a ride over there.”
So with her family in tow, Kami took off for the Lamar-Dixon Center to check up on the horses she had helped save, and to see the friends she had made in the process.
“I kept in touch with a bunch of people from down there. We were about an hour away from the Center when I got a phone call from one of my friends there,” Wolk said. “She told me that she knew how much I liked Howard and that he and the rest of the carriage horses were leaving today, and did I want her to buy him and then ship him up to me.”
“I said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but we’re an hour way from the Lamar-Dixon Center right now’,” Wolk smiled. “I just couldn’t believe it.”
Kami thought about it during the rest of her drive, and made an offer for Howard upon arrival at the Center.
“I wasn’t expecting to buy a horse when I went down, so I didn’t have a lot of cash on me,” Wolk explained. “But I did what I could, made and offer, and his owners accepted!”
Although she was ecstatic over the purchase of her new horse, Kami soon realized that she had no way to get Howard back to New Hampshire.
“He stayed with my friend Elizabeth in Louisiana for about a month,” she said. “Then I had a professional transportation company trailer him up because it just wasn’t going to be cost effective for me to drive down and pick him up, and then come all the way back up to New Hampshire.”
When spring finally arrived, Kami decided that it was time to see what Howard could do.
“I’m pretty sure that he bucked me off the first time I got on him,” she laughed. “For one thing, he was a carriage horse who was just ridden around for fun, but also he wasn’t used to a rider using their seat and legs what so ever.”
(Above Left: A fit and shiny Howard struts his stuff!)
After a few exciting rides, Howard learned what Kami was asking of him and settled down quickly. Before she knew it, Howard was walking, trotting, and cantering around in a nicely balanced frame, and popping over some small jumps here and there.
“I think our first recognized event was at Apple Knoll,” she recalled. “We did Beginner Novice and he was incredible!”
Kami and Howard continued their journey up the levels and less than three years after seeing him for the first time, Kami took Howard to his first Preliminary event. They finished seventh out of twenty-two riders.
Kami is still competing Howard and she has no intentions of ending his career any time soon…after all, he’s only seven now!
(Above Right & Below: Howard and Kami competing in Open Preliminary at Cosequin Stuart Horse Trials this past July. Emily Daily photos.)
“He’s a once-in-a-lifetime horse,” she said proudly. “I can put a student who’s learning to canter on him one day, a student who’s just learning how to jump can ride him the next day, and then he can go out and do a Prelim course. He’s a very special horse.”
