Trainer/farrier now has career in large animal rescue
December 31, 2009,by Kimberly French, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent
Kimberly French Louisville, KY — 
The Appaloosa mare, terrified by the blaze, the thick cloud of smoke and ensuing pandemonium, decided to reject all the efforts made to lead her to safety and remain in the place she felt most comfortable, even though the flames were nearly engulfing her.
When the North Strabane Fire Department and their Large Animal Rescue Unit arrived on the scene, Paul Williams, a Standardbred trainer and farrier for many years, realized he had shod the mare and once he found her, brought her through the inferno and out of danger.
“It was really a pretty simple deal,” the 38-year-old Welsh native said. “She wanted help and just needed some guidance. She had an open doorway to escape, but what you have to remember is a horse will stay in that barn before they leave it. That stall is their home.
“Even with the open door, it was chaos out there to her,” he continued. “The barn was burning down around her and you can only imagine what she was feeling. There were firetrucks and people screaming. It (the Equestrian Center) is a big boarding facility and there were a lot of horseowners that had arrived; it was a very emotional scene.”
Pearl escaped the conflagration with only mild burns across her back and is expected to fully recover. Williams thinks what saved the mare’s life was her blanket and the foot of water in her stall.
“Actually I didn’t realize at first but her stall was flooded out from the firefighters throwing water in there,” he explained. “They were running water through the door around her, because there were flames shooting through the wall as well as over her head and they were trying to douse it.
“Some of the embers and the ceiling were falling around her, but she was saturated, the stall was saturated and her big, thick winter blanket was saturated, so nothing could ignite,” Williams, who trains two head and shoes for the Pittsburgh Mounted Unit, continued. “She had some holes in her blanket where the fire had burned through and we were initially very worried, but once we got her to the lower barn, we had her vet checked right away. The burns were not much bigger than the size of a quarter and that blanket saved her big time.”
He has raced Standardbreds nearly his entire life and was a steeplechase jockey before coming to the United States in 1994, but large animal rescue and firefighting are relatively new occupations for Williams.
“One of my shoeing clients, Ed Childers, who is a firefighter, approached me last January and February about starting up a large animal rescue unit,” Williams remembered. “We were talking about some pretty peculiar predicaments horses get themselves in and he wanted me to help do some training with horse handling. I really didn’t have to think about it too long, because it is important and I was interested.
“We started looking into it and went out to Arizona last March for some technical training in large animal rescue,” he continued. “When we came back, I did my firefighter training and right now it is only the two of us, but after the first of the year we are adding someone else to our department and interest is progressing every day.”
Childers and Williams have been schooling their colleagues on how to handle horses as well as offering classes each month on barn safety, trailering, trail riding and pasturing procedures.
“We have been doing about one class a month for the last six months and have had about 300 people come through,” Williams said. “It’s great that it is sponsored by The Meadows owner’s organization and they will pay for it if people from the track want to attend. Right now we only cover North Strabane and Washington County, but we hope to reach out to all of Western Pennsylvania once we get things figured out.”