GRANTS PASS, Ore. — The community is rallying together to support a 13-year-old after someone stole thousands worth of her tack for her horse.
“I’ve always had like, the love and passion for horses,” Emilee Porter, 13-year-old, said.
Porter has been riding horses since she could walk. Now, at the age of 13, she raises lambs through 4-H to sell to pay for the right equipment to barrel race.
“You win? You save up with money that you win with your horse. You work hard for that money. You buy that things for your horse and the necessities that you need and that’s what I started doing,” Porter said.
When she visited her horse and found the lock broken off the barn door, she stepped inside and her heart dropped.
“Everything was gone,” Porter said.
Bridals, blankets, two boxes of tack and three saddles, including a brand new saddle Emilee bought just a month ago. Years of work, taken away in just a few minutes.
“It was one of my biggest accomplishments. I felt proud to be able to say ‘oh well, I bought this. I didn’t need the help of my parents,'” Porter said.
After posting to Facebook, community members stepped up to help and began offering to replace her tack.
“The outreach from the community has been breathtaking. It’s been amazing to see that when she really thought that she didn’t have a lot of friends. She is finding out now that she’s got a million friends,” Heather Porter, Emilee’s mother, said.
Emilee says racing is her escape and nothing will stop her from getting back on the horse.
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