What started as a horror story came to a happy end on Wednesday, when Lily’s adoption by former “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart and his wife Tracy became official, writes Lucas Rodgers for Daily Local News.

As she finalized the adoption of Lily and her friend, a horse named Anita, Tracy Stewart took the opportunity to talk about what the future holds for the horses, and to comment on her husband’s view of their growing “family”.

“He knew what he was getting into when he married me!” joked Tracy Stewart in a news clip posted by WGAL News 8.

Twenty-year-old Appaloosa/Arabian mare Lily was found abandoned, malnourished, and abused inside a stable at the New Holland Sales Stables. Her body was covered in welts from being shot over 100 times with a paintball gun. She was treated at Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center in East Marlborough, where veterinarians removed her right eye due to the damage caused by the pellets.

But that’s all in the past now.

“She’s really gentle, she’s really trusting, despite everything that she’s gone through,” commented Stewart.

Stewart first heard about Lily from Susie Coston, National Shelter Director of Farm Sanctuary, which rescues and protects farm animals. Stewart’s farm in New Jersey is the fourth location for Farm Sanctuary and Lily will be its ambassador for anyone who wants to visit her.  

Starting mid-July, Stewart said that updates about Lily will be posted on “The Daily Squeal,”  a Facebook page which chronicles the lives of animals on Stewarts’ farm.

Read more about the adoption at Daily Local News here, and check out previous VISTA Today coverage on Lily here.