Amy Pat Rigney was in her early 30s when she first became able to get a horse of her own. “I became a little girl really quickly,” she says, when the prospect of owning Casper turned her girlhood dream into a reality. As a complete newbie, Amy Pat had no idea that the sweet Quarter Horse was already ancient when she became his proud owner in 2003.
“I have since learned a lot about geriatric horse care,” says Amy Pat, with a little irony, but no regret. She’s yet to get that rideable horse she had dreamed of as a kid, but Amy Pat got something else: the inspiration to create a place where horses like Casper, who have outlived their conventional usefulness, can live out their lives.



Amy Pat lost Casper to laminitis eight months after she bought him but his legacy lives on at Horses of Tir Na Nog. The non-profit rescue in San Diego is currently home to 12 equines who are cared for by dedicated volunteers and veterinarian Dr. Kim Sergent. Horses of Tir Na Nog began with just three horses, who were accommodated at a private ranch owned by friends of Amy Pat’s, the Hopkins. With no publicity or outreach, more horses quickly found their way to the rescue and today Tir Na Nog regretfully has to turn away prospective residents.
That’s tough enough, but things stand to get even tougher. The ranch where nine members of Tir Na Nog’s herd live will no longer be available for the rescue come September. The owner had generously made space available to these horses for the last eight months, but she is moving soon and the horses must do the same. Another three of Tir Na Nog’s horses live at Peggy and Bernie Martin’s Oakzanita Ranch. There, one of the horses is fully sponsored and a second, Buttermilk, is sustained by generous boarder donations to the “Buttermilk fund.”
Tir Na Nog desperately needs space, hopefully permanent, for its horses. Four or five acres would be ideal for the current herd, but Amy Pat would love to have a bigger space so they can take on more.
Commercially boarding the horses is fiscally impossible. Tir Na Nog also tried fostering horses out, but the results were not good. Having horses scattered throughout San Diego County is impractical from a horsekeeping standpoint and would limit the rescue’s efforts.
Having its own location will do wonders for Tir Na Nog’s stability and potential for growth. Amy Pat knows that asking for acreage is a tall order, but her determination to find that is fueled by the reality that the need for permanent elder or out-of-service horse care is increasing fast.
Just like people, horses are living longer thanks to advances in health care. With San Diego considered one of the most equine-dense areas in the country, the situation is likely to become even more critical.
While a generous landowner is sought, there remain ample opportunities for regular horse lovers to help Tir Na Nog’s horses. Two hundred dollar monthly sponsorships cover one horse’s care for a month, and a $25 contribution will buy special feed for an adorable pony named Missy with Cushing’s disease. As an all-volunteer enterprise, Tir Na Nog has equal appreciation for donated time and elbow grease. Like most of her fellow volunteers, Amy Pat has a job in the real world: as the volunteer administrator for the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park.
If Horses Could Talk
If the horses of Tir Na Nog could talk, they’d have quite a variety of stories to tell. Eleven year old Buttermilk is a Mustang with a bit of Draft blood. She was removed from a wild Mustang herd near Eureka in the BLM’s Mustang management program. She is an Isabella Palomino, with an unusual color coat that is yellow through the summer and nearly white in winter. Her teeth are in bad shape and she is thought to have bad vision in her right eye, but she never misses an apple-bearing friend.
The big black Arabian/Quarter Horse cross, Midnight Special, acts half his 25 years most of the time. He was owned and loved by a San Diego couple for the first 20 years of his life. When the fires of 2003 scorched horse country there, the owners had to make the wrenching decision of which two of their three horses to haul to safety in their two-horse trailer. “Special” was left behind, but later rescued by firefighters. Determined not to face that predicament again, his original owners gave him to a friend who loved him. Diagnosed with Cushing’s disease and laminitis in 2003, Special was taken to Tir Na Nog in 2005 and remains a favorite among visitors.
Five year old PMU foal Joela Karamel is the best pal to her mentor and herd leader Cimarron, a 6 year old Quarter Horse/Paint cross. Like most of the horses at Tir Na Nog, Joela has benefited greatly from the positive reinforcements in operant training techniques. Joella and Cimarron are an inseparable pasture pair.
Horses come first at Tir Na Nog, but people are important to its mission, too. As a girl who dreamed of being with horses throughout her youth, Amy Pat envisions Tir Na Nog as a “place where people can come and interact with horses while caring for them.”
“That’s what really moved me to take on a rescue horse or two in the beginning,” she continues. “We need volunteers to groom, muck, provide basic training, etc., and that is really a big part of how we see our future.” In the process, Horses of Tir Na Nog’s mission statement aspires “to build connections between the horses and people of the San Diego community, increasing awareness about responsible horse ownership and care through education.”
In Irish legend, Tir Na Nog is a land where horses and people live happily ever after and never grow old. The rescue can’t do much about growing old, but it is certainly providing the “happy ever after” to its lucky residents.
To learn more about the Horses of Tir Na Nog, or to help in any way, please visit www.horsesoftirnanog.org or send a donation to the non-profit group at 6364 Arms Lake Ave., San Diego, CA 92119, c/o Amy Pat Rigney.