How to help the victims of the barn fire.

This post is for my regular readers and supporters. As you will be aware now Boyd Martin suffered the incomprehensible and senseless tragedy of a barn fire on Monday night resulting in the death of six of his horses. Boyd absolutely adores and is in love with each of his horses so is obviously devastated. And also by now you'll also be aware that two of Boyd's workers (Lillian Heard and Caitlin Silliman) and his best friend (Ryan Wood) were also living in the apartment above the barn. They lost everything they owned and the roof over their head. It was these three who were first on scene and literally leapt into the fire to save as many lives as possible. Boyd was shortly on the scene dragging his World Games mount to safety with the help of Phillip Dutton. They all went against the laws of nature and self preservation and the orders of the firemen to rescue who they could. Unfortunately six beautiful horses (including Lillian's own wonderful mare) lost their lives, fortunately five survived and fortunately their were no human fatalities. For the last few days I've done what every other horse owner/rider/trainer/lover has done and recreated the scenario in my head. Going over everything from the first smell of smoke (Lillian, thank God for her or no one may have made it) to the ensuing minutes of utter chaos and terror. Waking up to the smell of smoke not knowing that your heart and soul are about to be ripped apart with no hope of repair. I couldn't bear it and know these guys are feeling a pain that hopefully none of us will ever experience. As a bystander our first reaction is to want to help, to give, to soften the pain. We can't do that. Time and life will. But I know that many of my regular readers want to help and below I've listed SOME of the ways you can. Also be aware NONE of them have put their hand out and asked for help. Right now all they need is each other and time to comprehend what happened. The other thing we can do is make our own barns as fire proof as possible. Fire extinguishers, sledge hammers, crow bars, escape plans. Have them ALL, KNOW how to use them. Above all thank god for your own good fortune and precious horses, and pray he helps our friends.

Ryan Wood and Caitlin Silliman http://www.scesports.org/Biographies.html. scroll down to Ryan Wood. This is tax deductible.
Lillian Heard http://www.lillianjheard.com/
Boyd Martin www.boydandsilvamartin.com