I don’t have very much experience with horses. My sole childhood memory of them involves getting bitten by one as I tried unsuccessfully to feed it a carrot. I was with my family visiting friends in rural Connecticut – it was probably my first time on a farm – and I was a bit out of my element. Needless to say, I avoided horses for a while after that.

But on Saturday, I found myself surrounded by them. I was in Mapleton, where some of Trudy Childs’s horses are being kept while the court tries to decide what to do about her case – she’s been accused of animal cruelty, and her horses, around 130 of them, are malnourished and neglected. Volunteers from the community have stepped up to help feed and look after the horses, and a veterinarian from Park City came down on Saturday to vaccinate and deworm them.

A few of the horses were pretty skittish, but most were surprisingly friendly, and before they realized they were about to get a shot, they would nuzzle up to us, probably, according to the vet, looking for food. At one point, as I was crouching on the ground, focusing my camera on the vet getting supplies out of her bag, I look up and see 5 horses surrounding me. “They only kick you if you stand behind them, right?” I ask, laughing a bit, trying to be nonchalant. The horses seem a lot bigger when you’re down on the ground.

It was pretty amazing to watch the vet calming the horses as she tried to get them under control before vaccinating them. A few times they got a bit rowdy, and galloped away across the field – I tried not to seem too excited, but I had never saw a horse gallop before either.

It was definitely a fun assignment to shoot, and a great experience to see the community come together like that to look after the horses.