Plant City woman works for rescues.
When Courtney Miller’s (née Justin) family moved to Plant City when she was 15, she got a job at Subway, then used her first paycheck to buy a rescue horse. “They are amazing,” she said. “They are very emotional animals. There are a lot of places around us that take in children with disabilities, and they put them on horses, and it helps them.” Since she got her first horse, the 2014 Plant City High School graduate has left Subway in her rearview mirror and has established two businesses in downtown Plant City, Fire Flower Candles and Bloom & Brews Garden. However, she never left rescuing horses.
In 2021, Miller kept three horses at her best friend, Amanda’s, ranch. Then Amanda died in a car accident while visiting Colorado. Weeks after this tragedy, Amanda’s parents graciously sold the ranch on Knights Griffin Rd. to Miller. Amanda’s mother even helped Miller remodel the house on the property.
The ranch transformed into a horse rescue when Miller rescued another horse near Bruton Road. This one had barbed wire wrapped around his halter. “I take in a lot of horses that are really skinny or injured, then I rehab them,” Miller said. After Hurricane Milton hit, she had 30 horses, many had been lost and were wandering. “They were super-skinny, so we took them in. We were able to find the owners for three of the horses, but no one ever came for the rest.”
Miller and her family trained and sold most of the horses that went unclaimed to recoup the money it took to care for them, except the ones that were injured. But, “One of the horses that we had rehabbed lost 700 pounds from the owners he was with. He lost almost half of his body weight. After that, I stopped reselling them unless I really know the people. But we still take in rescues. If I see something on Facebook, or someone reaches out to me that they can’t take care of a horse anymore, we still take them in. I have 11 right now. Of the horses I have, only two are rideable. The rest are forever injured or retired. We train horses to do ground work and handle behavioral issues with them. A lot of the horses were hurt before—abused. So it takes time to get them healthy. What we do now is keep the rescues, and people come to help love them.”
With the two rideable horses, Miller trains children and some adults to ride. She doesn’t charge any fees. “I train a lot of kids,” Miller said. “That is the main thing I do with the horses that are rideable. I just do it because I love to do it. I will teach the kids to ride and to take care of horses, and in turn, they clean stalls, they bathe the horses.”
The operation isn’t a registered horse rescue; Miller just takes in surrendered horses. She and her husband spend $3,000 to $4,000 a month to feed and care for the rescues. “We make no money off the rescues; it is all our money,” Miller said. Earnings from Fire Flower and Bloom and Brew help to pay for her horse rescue. However, that isn’t enough to cover the costs. They can use help. “Hay, feed, shavings for the stalls, that is something we go through a lot of,” Miller said. “If people donate hay and feed, that is something we would take. We could take money, but I prefer that someone knows what it is going towards.” Another way people can help is to volunteer. Miller is open to interested people coming to the ranch to help give the horses love, care, and attention, doing things like brushing them.
Miller’s heart for horses doesn’t stop. “We have room for five more horses, if anyone needs a place,” she concluded. “We just like them to fully surrender them to us.”
To give or volunteer, Miller can be contacted at:
Fire Flower on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553013115350
Bloom & Brews Garden on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573037611027
(813) 704-9856
