42 / Sport and Trail Magazine
A Fresh Beginning for “The General”
by
Brandie Kessler
New Freedom Farm
Buchanan, Virginia
Photography courtesy New Freedom Farm
Grooming Midnight
Lois Fritz, founder of New Freedom Farm in Buchanan, Virginia, welcomed The General to her sanctuary in April. The previously unnamed BLM mustang, #0781, was captured in August 2013 in the Kamma Mountains of Nevada. Like most BLM mustangs, he was rounded up, gelded, freeze branded and living in a corral, a prisoner for most of his life.
When Lois met him face-to-face at an adoption event in Swedesboro, New Jersey she could see the fear in The General’s eyes. He had every reason to not trust people. Never touched by human hands, he touched Lois’ heart.
Lois experienced trauma and neglect as a child. She saw it in countless others during her work as a forensic nurse in New Jersey, prior to moving to Virginia and founding New Freedom Farm. That trauma Lois endured for so long began building up in her.
Though she had left her childhood behind when she enlisted in the Navy at 18 she was able to walk away from the countless crime scenes she had investigated in her career. The memories of those traumatic experiences never left her. When the weight of all that trauma became too much, a therapist Lois was seeing suggested she own a horse. That got the ball rolling on what has become her life and mission: New Freedom Farm.
The General is the most recent equine to make its way into Lois’s mission to heal humans through horses. As Lois stood looking at him at the adoption event, his body thin, his hair matted with mud and his eyes distrusting of what would happen to him next, she could see the pain in The General’s past. She wanted to meet him in that place and help him find a way to peace through trust and love. It’s a path she’s helped so many others to find and walk.
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After five years of existing in captivity, General MacArthur, I Shall Return has made his way home.