A horse in the Inland Empire has gotten a second chance in life after it joined the Riverside County Sheriff\u2019s Department following an animal abuse rescue.<\/p>\n
Maverick, a 9-year-old Andalusian horse, was one of about half a dozen horses that were rescued from a home in Cabazon in 2024.\u00a0 At the time of the rescue, the horses were skin and bone, showing the signs of severe malnourishment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maverick also appeared that he had been physically abused as he had cuts to the body as if he got hung up in wire.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His initial owner, accused of animal abuse, surrendered the animals to animal control and went to jail.<\/p>\n
Deputy Bryan Hubbard saw Maverick after he was rescued and felt an instant connection with the horse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first got there, he would lay down and stick his head from the corral to get a flake of grass. That\u2019s how hungry he was,\u201d said Hubbard, a \u201cTop Gun fan\u201d who ended up adopting the horse and named him Maverick.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
After several months of nutrition, attention and care, Maverick and the deputy became closer, eventually with the horse allowing Hubbard to jump on and ride.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That was the beginning of the training for Maverick, said Hubbard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just got done a one-week, 40 hour training. It\u2019s for us and the horse to experience the sensory, fireworks and shooting,\u201d he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The pair is now part of the department\u2019s Mounted Enforcement unit, which handles regular patrol, crowd control and special operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t been on a horse pursuit with him yet. I\u2019m sure he will do well,\u201d Hubbard said optimistically.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Maverick is still the rookie within the team, he has been able to overcome his biggest challenge: winning over the deputy that gave him a second chance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as I leave, he will walk and follow me without the rope like a big puppy dog,\u201d Hubbard explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hubbard said he and Maverick can be seen any day, patrolling all over the country. And as horses tend to retire from the department at age 22, Maverick has a long career ahead of him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A horse in the Inland Empire has gotten a second chance in life after it joined the Riverside…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":285340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,224,5337,8470],"class_list":{"0":"post-285339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-riverside-county"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115336127785407376","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}