Kyle Hughes has brought his halter horse business back from ruins after a devastating tornado destroyed his home, barn and horses.

On April 27, 2011, at 1:15 a.m., the wind let loose on Hughes Quarter Horses, a leading halter horse farm in southwest Virginia.

“We had been paying attention to the news all day, and at 11:45 [p.m.] they canceled all the warnings,” trainer Kyle Hughes said. “At about 1 [a.m.], I heard the wind getting up and decided to go to the basement. At 1:15, all the windows started blowing out of the house. It [the storm] lasted maybe 15 or 20 minutes at the most.”

It’s hard to believe that in so little time, the fury of wind could demolish everything the Hughes family owned. Hughes, his parents – Kyle and Marilyn – and his nephew, Matthew Nash, waited for 10 minutes, then climbed from the basement.

It was an ominous reflection of the destruc- tion when the Hughes family found this stuffed horse in a pile of wreckage that used to be their hot walker.

By 2 a.m., Hughes reached the barn. The sight was absolutely devastating.

“We lost five of them,” Hughes said about his horses. “It was pretty gruesome. I lost a 2-year- old gelding, two broodmares, a 2-year-old show mare and a 2-year-old show gelding. The hardest one was the 2-year-old mare. She was third at [2010] Youth World.”

While the loss of halter horses was heart-wrenching, the wreckage all around the property was almost equally tragic.

“They totaled everything,” Hughes explained. “The damage on our property was $1 million. That was for trucks, trailers, fences, barns and the house.”

News of the catastrophe traveled fast. Before long, friends were sending items for the surviving horses, food for the family and boxes for whatever belongings weren’t ruined. Many navigated treacherous roads through fallen trees and down power lines to assist the Hughes family.

“We had so much help that I cannot honestly tell you who all came,” Hughes said. “I didn’t realize I had as many friends as I had until all that happened.”

One group that arrived quickly was the horse judging team from Virginia Tech. Hughes hosted the team at his farm barely a month earlier for practice judging halter horses.

“I hope they’ll come back and do their usual spring trip,” Hughes said. “I’m willing to help them any way I can help them.”

Hughes’ generosity in the horse world created a base of support for him in his time of need. Thanks to an unwavering will to carry on and the assistance of friends, things are looking up.

“We had five classes and four horses [at the 2011 AQHA World Show], and all of them made the top 10,” Hughes said. “Not only did we go to the [AQHA] World Show, but I had kids at Youth World in August and I went to the Select World Show. Actually, one of my customers had the World Champion Performance Halter Gelding at Select World.”

Perseverance and determination have brought Hughes through the unfortunate events he and his family were faced with.

“I felt very lucky to be able to go and thought it was wonderful,” Hughes said about still attending shows. “A lot of people that went through what we did would’ve never even tried to make it there. It’s been real tough to juggle it all.

“Considering our two best show horses died, we were scrambling to come up with new show horses within three weeks of the qualifying deadline,” Hughes explained. “It has been a rollercoaster and I have days where it’s still pretty tough to think about what happened.”

In mid-October, Hughes was able to move his horses back to his property and into his new barn. He and his parents, however, are still living in a leased home while they continue to rebuild.

“We’re still to this day picking stuff up, but it took two months of every day, eight hours a day,” Hughes recalled. “This has made me respect the whole horse industry a lot more. Life is finally getting back to normal.”