Horse healed at UGA to lead Wells Fargo stagecoach team in Rose Parade

Rusty, a horse which had its broken leg mended at the University of Georgia Veterinary Teaching Hospital, will lead the first ever six-horse Wells Fargo stagecoach team in the 2018 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif. on Jan. 1.

Rusty is a 10-year-old Belgian who was injured when kicked in the shin by another horse right before pulling the stagecoach in the 2014 St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Savannah, Ga.

According to a story on the University of Georgia website, http://www.uga.edu/, Rusty, was brought to the hospital three years ago by his owner David Helmuth of Milledgeville, Ga.

The veterinary team determined that extensive medical care and surgery would be required to treat the injury but the prognosis was not good and Helmuth was told Rusty might never be sound again.

Eric Mueller is the chief medical officer of the hospital and was part of the team that treated Rusty. In the report, Mueller says Rusty was “very lame, almost non-weight bearing lame where he couldn’t put weight on that leg.”

“Initially, we probably would have given him a about a 50-50 chance because of the size of the horse, the location of the wound and the severity of the lameness” Mueller says in the report.

In the story, the horse’s owner called the recovery “nothing short of a miracle.”

This story was originally published December 21, 2017 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Horse healed at UGA to lead Wells Fargo stagecoach team in Rose Parade."