Three year old paint not broke wild stud .This one has all his oats .The meek need not inquire .Raised this colt from birth will let you pet him and feed him thats about it .Cant get any more honest.Needs EVERYTHING.$100.00 CASH ONLY .SERIOUS INQIURES BY EMAIL THANK YOU PRICE IS FIRM.

It’s idiots like this guy (Yes, I’m making what some may call an “assumption”, that the seller is male.  I, however, prefer to think of it as a logical deduction based upon past experience of reading lots and lots and lots of craigslist ads!) who create problem horses and then dump them.  To clarify, for anyone out there who’s thinking of getting into breeding: “raising” a horse involves putting more training into the horse than just petting and feeding.  (Please read the following as if in a loud, fake, stage whisper) Psst! Neither of those require any training or effort.  Your horse is likely feral because you put so very little time or effort into him.  From the rest of the horse-world: thanks a ton, you giant douchebag.

It’s sad because this little guy looks like he may be cute.  That is to say there’s no overt fugliness; no weiner-dog-esque back, his hind legs don’t appear to be camped under… aaand that’s all we can guess at based on the photos.  But, considering what typically passes as a “suitable” stud on craigslist, this guy is a freaking GQ model! *facepalm*

I guess the one good thing you could say about this ad is that the writer freely admits the horse “needs everything”.   He actually acknowledges that the horse needs work – perhaps somewhere in his subconscious, deep down, buried under sports stats and fond Playboy memories, he knows he didn’t do right by this horse.

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“Older couple trying to sell out! Herd number got outta control selling cheap for fast results. Percheron thourobred crosses, quarter horse, and thourobred. They have 1 curly mained palimino mare very sweet 9 year old is broke to ride just been a while $100, bay mare x jump horse 15 years old registered rode 6 months ago is tenderfooted on front end $100, quarter horse mare sorrel blonde main 5 years old very pretty $100, 2 blackish fillies around two years old one real gentle one has never been handled $50 for one $75 for the other, grey stud thourobred percheron cross $50 2 year old, FREE older thourobred grey 17 hand gelding one knee bigger then the other rides just been a while, FREE older percheron mare poor, not gentle only be good for breeding, FREE arabain pony never been handled stud 3 year old.FREE crippled filly and black gelding the gelding is sweet.”

Since when do mares get pregnant, drop a foal, and get pregnant again in the span of mere weeks?  Gosh, you’d think something like that would make the news.  Does the accelerated aging/growth continue past birth or is it limited to in utero foals?  Perhaps these people would be kind enough to explain to us how this is accomplished.  And, if they haven’t already, let’s patent it and make a fortune!  Hazza!

Oh no wait, we know, all of a sudden their horses spontaneously and concurrently reproduced via mitosis?  Now that could generate quite the herd!

No? Not buying it?  Neither are we.  But honestly, those are the only scenarios we could conceive of wherein their herd numbers could get “outta control”.  Given that a mare’s gestation period is approximately 11 months – how the fuck does the growth of a herd sneak up on someone and become “outta control”?

More than likely they’re just complete fucktards who have their heads so far up their own asses that they lack the basic deductive skills to calculate the following

1 stallion + 1 mare = 1 more mouth to feed

“bay mare x jump horse 15 years old registered rode 6 months ago is tenderfooted on front end $100” –WTF is a “jump horse”?  THAT IS NOT A BREED! Hmm 15 year old horse with tender front feet… we’re taking bets on navicular vs. laminitis/founder -  anyone want in on that action?

“grey stud thourobred percheron cross $50 2 year old” and “FREE arabain pony never been handled stud 3 year old” Good gawd, please don’t tell us they’re the sires of any of your “outta control” herd.  *face palm* If they aren’t contributing to the gene pool yet they will be if they’re not rehomed soon!

“FREE older percheron mare poor, not gentle only be good for breeding”.  What in that sentence makes her “good for breeding” – just because you can’t do anything with her?  Over at Snarky Rider we have a saying: Just because it has a uterus doesn’t mean it needs a baby.  Applies quite nicely here.  Seriously, we’re going to start putting that on bumper stickers or something and start mailing it to asshats like this.

And last, but certainly not least, we unfortunately have “FREE crippled filly and black gelding the gelding is sweet”.  So the crippled filly isn’t sweet?  Could she perhaps be a little bit ornery because they’ve somehow crippled her?  Ok, it’s a bit of a leap to assume these people are the cause of the filly’s lameness, but come on.  It’s not exactly a stretch of the imagination in this case.

Why is it that people like this can’t get it into their heads that just because their horse isn’t suited for the show ring doesn’t mean they should be popping out babies!  A fugly, useless mare is not magically transformed into a useful horse when you have it impregnated.  All you’ve succeeded in doing is compounding the problem.  In 11 months you’ll have 2 useless mouths to feed!  You know what’s sad?  These people are apparently an older couple – they should know better.  In our society, age is somehow equated with wisdom – presumably the assumption stems from people gathering life experiences as they age and learning from them, however, this is clearly not always the case.  People like this serve as nothing more than a reminder that we should always think for ourselves and be very careful who we choose as role models.

Damn, that got a little preachy.  Oh well

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Since reading all the submissions, instead we’re going to throw this one out to the other writers who were hoping to contribute to Fugly. There were a lot of well written articles submitted. From those we’ve chosen two that we feel took an original approach to the topic.

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This first piece is by The Naughty Tobiano.

The Black Market Horse Meat Industry—Could Domestic Slaughter STOP this Atrocity?

While the debate of should horses be slaughtered has been a very hot, hot topic since the late 1990s; and it’s heating up even more with Obama’s signing of a bill that would repeal the ban on USDA inspectors essentially making it legal to slaughter horses again the U.S. except for in CA and IL. Both sides are vehemently arguing their points.

The anti-slaughter side argues that slaughtering a horse is inhumane and cruel as horses have souls and feelings; and that they should be considered pets or companion animals—not livestock. They point fingers at the breeding industry, back yard breeders, incentive programs offered by registries, and the money hungry horse dealers who only see $$$$$. They demand more laws, in some cases suggesting restrictions on who gets to own a horse is the answer. Others state a “foal tax” is the answer.

However, many of the horses standing in kill pens waiting to die are in the prime of their life: 8-15 yr olds, born BEFORE the ban on USDA inspectors went into effect. It is this point as well as some of the suffering slaughter bound horses face that have many pro-slaughter advocates suggesting Obama’s signature was a good thing. They argue the horses are suffering in Canadian and Mexican slaughter houses where the method of slaughter is NOT regulated. Evidence suggests horses’ throats are slit and the butchering begins before they are dead. The pro-slaughter side argues they want to lessen the suffering of horses that are presently bound for slaughter by tightly controlling the manner in which horses are treated at the new “equine processing plants” and ensure the slaughter is humane. They further cite how re-opening slaughter will reduce the unwanted horse population and restore the once lucrative economic market that the horse industry brought to all parts of the U.S.

Some people worry about the BLM mustangs. Some people worry about the race horses.

There is another argument that has little to do with the welfare of horses but instead focuses on the human consumption element of horse slaughter.

One anti-slaughter argument points to repeated European bans on U.S. horse meat (http://www.pennsylvaniaequestrian.com/news/EU-ban-1009.php ; http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Quality-Safety/Tainted-US-horse-meat-puts-world-consumers-at-risk-welfare-body ) and state that it is ethically wrong for the U.S. to slaughter horses and export the meat when many American horses have been treated with medicines that clearly state on the label “not intended for use in horses for human consumption”. On the flip side, reports are showing there is little evidence that bute , ivemectrin, pyrantel, and other equine drugs stay in the horse’s system long enough to cause harm to humans. The paleo diet movement actually encourages horse meat, stating that humans were meant to eat horse: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/horse-meat/

But there is a much, much darker side to the unavailability of domestically processed and inspected meat: the black market for horse meat.

The following links are actual news stories concerning a growing problem in Southern Florida. Horses are being STOLEN and butchered on the side of the road, often while still alive, to supply meat for the black horsemeat market.

WARNING…….The videos are graphic and photos horrific.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61rD3rBC2L4&feature=related
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6478115
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7VMcna1PAE

Though presently focused on a trend in Florida only, is black market horse meat reaching other ethnic communities around the U.S.? Though it appears the killers for this market are sticking to a small locality of Florida, what makes people think the horse meat is not traveling through the underground market to other states with heavy populations of Hispanic communities. Furthermore, is the desire for horsemeat reserved for the Hispanic culture or are other ethnic groups also feeding the greed of the black market.

Having said that, is it reasonable to believe that if the USDA began offering inspected, legal, domestic horse meat would the black market disappear?

This same argument has been made for the legalization of marijuana.

But….it was also made long before that in another still heated Pro Vs. Anti fight: Abortion. Prior to the legalization of abortion, thousands of women died while having an illegal abortion. But, once legalized, the back alley, black market diminished and women could safely make the choice concerning their own body.

Could this rationale not be applied to the black market for horse meat? Is it not reasonable to assume that IF people who wanted to eat horse meat due to their culture or their own personal health beliefs had access to a safe, legal source the black market would essentially disappear?

Obviously the current situation is grim as there are repeated reports of horses being stolen and simply disappearing. The anti-slaughter side points their fingers to the current “kill buyers” but I sincerely have my doubts that the dealers who sell to the feed lots are all running around Southern Florida snatching up family’s beloved horses? Why would they when there is a myriad of FREE ones on craigslist just a short trailer ride from many auction houses and feed lots.

So…..would the black market crumble if horse meat were domestically available? No matter how many videos of a captive bolt coming down on a horse I see, I cannot compare it to the terror and pain a horse like Geronimo suffered at the hands of the butchers who took him from his barn and tortured him just a half a mile from his family.

It may be a very distasteful thing to think about; but, under tightly regulated USDA supervised situations, could humane slaughter stop this atrocity?

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Check back tomorrow for another submission on this issue.

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Someone commented on a post yesterday that they were disappointed we hadn’t come out with anything new since their last visit and provided links to two craigslist ads as entertainment for everyone while waiting for our next post.  (We want to predicate the following sentence by stating there’s no sarcasm intended!) We’re very sorry to keep you waiting!  We thought we’d take those two ads and throw some of our own snarky commentary at them.

First up on the chopping block comes to us from Wisconsin.  Now, there may be some people out there who are going “oh ya, Wisonsin, eh?  Didn’t see that coming!”  Or maybe that’s just us…  Wisconsiners! You’re not helping yourself by posting this kind of crap!  This is not a good advertisement of your stallion!

Breeding stock Appy Stallion – $200

“Clyde is an 11 year old Stallion.  Not Broke not Registered.  No training.. “ 

We wish we were kidding, but you can’t make this stuff up!  First off, if you’re not familiar with the Appy (Appaloosa) breed, you may be wondering where his spots are.  Well, it is possible for an Appaloosa to be a solid color – it’s not very common, and certainly not what the breed is known for, but it happens.  From wiki: “Not every Appaloosa exhibits visible coat spotting, but even apparently solid-colored horses that carry at least one dominant LP allele will exhibit characteristics such as vertically striped hooves, white sclera of the eye, and mottled skin around the eyes, lips, and genitalia.”

Next we have the two excellent selling points the current owner thoughtfully included: “not broke” and “not registered”.  There are just so many things to be said about this horse not being broke to ride that we’re unsure where to start!  Is he unbroke because you’re lazy or because there’s an underlying medical cause?  Or perhaps the horse is barely halter broke and is too dangerous for anyone but an honest-to-goodness, bronc ridin’ cowboy to break?  Next to being unbroke the fact that he’s unregistered pales in comparison.  Sure it brings to mind the question of whether the owner was too lazy vs. the horse actually being unregisterable – which brings up one last question to ponder (and also kind of sums up the ad as a whole):  What exactly about this horse makes him viable “breeding stock”?!

Our next contestant is another stallion, this time an AQHA.

AQHA STALLION must go soon – $2250

“needs a new home. he is a good horse. sweet in all ways and rides too. very nice blood lines. owner having twin boys and no time for the horse. grandson of KAY CEE LEAGURE. “

First of all, we’d like to commend the owners on their bravery in including that particular photo in the ad.  It’s rare these days for people to have enough self-confidence to say ”who cares” to the world and showcase their potentially beautiful stud in a puddle of water so frakking deep you can’t see his hooves.  You really have to have a “who gives a flying f#(%”-type attitude to show the world that you feel it’s ok to keep your horse (we hope it’s not horses) in these sorts of conditions.  Hell, maybe they used this photo because the water successfully hides his feet (toes so long they make him look like he’s on skis?) and his head/neck hides his front legs completely.  Then again, if you follow horsey news you can easily believe this stud has it better than lots of other horses out there. At least he has food and water!  Perhaps it’s all a matter of perspective.  Oi, now we’re depressed.  Moving on.

This boy has all you could ever want in a stud!  He’s “a good horse” and he’s “sweet” – and not just in one way, in all ways! (bonus!).  As if that wasn’t enough, he also rides!  Awkward phrasing aside, this is actually where he’s heads and tails above Clyde (sorry Clyde, the truth hurts).

And now for the obvious:  NEITHER AD MENTIONS HEIGHT AND ONLY ONE OF THEM MENTIONS AGE!   But hey, don’t sweat it sellers, just because those details are among the first that most people fill out on those fancy-schmancy horse selling websites, doesn’t mean they’re important!  Minor details, clearly.  Only some people actually find them noteworthy.

*head desk*

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I just want to make sure you are all sitting down now, because I know you are all going to be shocked and stunned that a bunch of grade Quarter Horse-Percheron mixes just went to kill. In fact, allow me to put on my Madame Cleo hat and psychically determine that they weren’t ridden through the auction. I am gonna bet you the “culls” were halter broke at best and presented themselves pretty much like a herd of wild, fugly buffalo at the auction. And they went to kill…NO SHIT, REALLY??? OMG! What will happen next, Lindsey Lohan getting caught with drugs or something???

This is, seriously, one of the dumbest horse-related articles I’ve ever read. They brag about the horses’ bloodlines dating back to the 1800′s. Dude, every single horse’s bloodlines date back to fifty million years ago or so when Eohippus walked the earth. So what? Mere age or a recording of pedigree does not make bloodlines valuable. THEY’RE NOT WINE!

If anyone had done two minutes of research online, they’d have realized:

1) There was no need to breed draft crosses for prison guards to ride. AMERICA IS FULL OF THEM thanks to our overpopulation of douchebag “sport horse” breeders who think every mix between a light horse and a draft horse purchased at the local auction is Olympic bound, despite the fact that their horses’ primary skill is knocking their breeder ass-over-teakettle when s/he tries to walk through the pasture carrying a bucket.

2) Although, while we’re on the subject, why are all your prison guards 300 lbs.? It is time for Weight Watchers at Work, not bigger horses.

3) If you are sending 100 culls to auction every year, guess what, MOST are going to kill. Again, allow me to guess that you are not “culling” the ones that are rideable and usable. You’re sending off stuff you thought wasn’t good enough to train, or stuff you couldn’t get trained. Why the dramz now? Is this the first time someone noticed? Uh-oh buuuuusted. Sort of plays hell with your P.R. that this is some sort of genetically perfect herd. Puhleeese. It is a herd of a whole lot of Nothing Special. Some of them may become well broke enough to have a value as riding horses for larger people or hunting pack horses, but without the training (which, again, I doubt you put on the ones you dump at auction), they are worth about sixty cents a pound.

You need to get your heads out of your butts and look beyond the razor wire at the real world once in a while. There is no need whatsoever to produce a ton of supersized grade QH crosses. You could easily mount your guards on draft crosses from RESCUES. Truly, it is not that hard to find untrained brick shithouses with short backs and no withers if that is your ideal. I really doubt any of your inmates are that desperately in need of any lessons about the miracle of life from watching mares foal; most of them are probably way behind on their own child support. So why don’t you set a good example and STOP BREEDING GRADE CRAP instead of acting all traumatized and stunned when the low end of your grade crap breeding program very predictably winds up on the double-decker to Hell? I mean, what was wrong with making license plates…if you made too many of THOSE, nobody got hurt!

P.S. Texas taxpayers…so this is what you’re stuck funding, a backyard breeding program to produce unwanted horses that wind up going to kill? Um…I’d be pissed!

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I got a shocking e-mail today from someone filling me in that the owner of a large Texas Arabian farm had passed away, and that the family, after making a token attempt to sell some horses, had decided they did not want the hassle and sold them all to kill buyer Bill Richardson for $200 each.

I’m going to leave it to you guys to name the farm in the comments. I want to see if the news has spread. I almost have a hard time believing it myself, looking at their (out of date) web site (still up) and seeing the beautiful horses there. Many were Straight Egyptian, many were black (which is often more marketable despite the fact that, like roan in Quarter Horses, it is a color that has been bred for without a thought to the quality of the horse that carries it). I don’t want to think of them on a double-decker to Mexico, even though I believe this person’s email that it did happen. If it did, there is a special place in hell for the family member responsible (but it also appears the deceased gentleman had a gf or wife with him, so WTF was wrong with her? Ladies, learn to take a little responsibility for the animals living on your property and stop wanting everybody else to handle your problems…THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS.)

But again…over 100 horses. Obviously no provision for them in his will or this would not have happened. Though I’m told this person wasn’t exactly Responsible Breeder of the Year, and his pastures were generally dotted with underweight horses with poor hoof care. He just took pictures of the select few that he kept fattened up and cared for.

First of all, I’m curious if you guys know what farm I’ve talking about and have details to add. EDITED: OK, the word is out. It was Ramses Arabians in Texas and the horses CAN still be saved. Here is the info: “Darlene Cruite is corresponding with Bill Richardson. She is trying to compile a list of available horses. Bill bought 150 for $20,000 ( about $150 each)He has to keep them 2 to 4 weeks to have their paper work ready for them to cross the border. We only have that much time to find homes and get them moved. Darlene’s contact info is: home; 903-893-8690, cell; 940-368-3329, e mail ; 4kuhaylan@prodigy.net. Bill is not returning Lett’s calls. His contact info is; Penncross Ranch 121 85 FM Rd., Kilgore, Texas 75662 . Phone; 903-984-3819, 903-649-1658, e mail; penncross@tyler.net The clock is ticking, get this info on all the egyptian forums ASAP”

Secondly, and this goes for ALL breeds, what do you think is the best solution to these 100, 200, 700 horse clusterfucks we seem to be seeing? Do you think there should be restrictions on how many animals you can own without showing proof of financial stability and ability to care for them? If you are the owner of a very large farm like one of these, I’m especially interested to hear from you what restrictions you think are fair and would not punish the good people.

I have been saying for years that there needs to be a $50 or $100 per foal municipal tax. The local municipalities would LOVE to enforce it as a source of income. It would not harshly affect the breeders of quality foals that are going to sell for good money. What it would discourage is the breeding of a large quantity of foals, or the breeding of foals likely to sell for $500 or less.

I know this is America, and we’re the land of the free, but we genuinely can’t afford to keep cleaning up someone’s 100 or 200 or 300 horse mistakes, and I think it’s atrocious that many were deliberately created just to wind up going to slaughter. Again, if horses were more rare, your prices WOULD be back up. It has nothing to do with slaughter, it has to do with the fact that we’re still breeding more horses than the market will bear, and plenty of them aren’t getting any training. How in the world do we make breeders scale back/take a break? I know many of you are already doing that, but I don’t mean you — I mean the arrogant idiots who think their horses are more valuable than gold even though their inability to sell any contradicts that. Is there ANYTHING that you’ve seen work on these people? What do you think might?

Watch her video here.

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And just to make things more entertaining, the breeder gave a dozen horses to Last Chance Corral in February and then tried to act like she was doing THEM a favor! Here is her own post from ABN:

“The post by Last Chance Corral is for some lovely horses that I have donated to them, if and when they can sell them. This is to help this respected rescue center raise money to pay for the rehabilitation of neglected and abused horses. To make this PERFECTLY CLEAR to all…. that these horses are still at my farm, healthy and certainly not neglected at all. By donating them, this is my way of helping out the horses that are very much in need. LCCorral does not have them at their place. My only stipulations to LCCorral was that they were to be sold to good homes and must be gelded prior to providing AHA documents to the new buyer for registration. This way it isn’t adding to the stallions galore which contributes to overbreeding and yet the horses retain their heritage. They are show quality youngsters with spectacular pedigrees for halter, performance, endurance, racing, trail, and best friends.

I’m doing them a favor! It’s a fundraiser for the rescue to have these amazing horses from me! Boy, broken record, how many times have we heard that sort of silly shit before? No rescue takes in horses to resell for money. If a rescue tells you that, they are desperately trying to get the horses away from you so that they can be cared for properly.

The Arabian horse world is freaking, and I don’t blame them. In this case, I will agree with many of the breeders freaking — I think it is ridiculous that just because the horses are in the rescue pipeline, now it’s OMG WE GOTTA GELD EVERYTHING. Um, no. Not a single one of the stallions on this page NEEDS to get gelded — they need to live at a responsible breeding farm with a reasonable number of horses and, you know, the ability to balance the fucking checkbook. None of the mares on this page is effing up the quality of Arabians by reproducing or needs to be stopped from ever doing so again. This woman, Marsha Parkinson, wasn’t breeding crap. What she was doing, sorry to her defenders who are like “but they’re not that bad!” (No, most are not Grace, but they are not good – those yearlings scream MASSIVE PARASITE INFESTATION and if you watch the videos, some do truly look awful) is the usual over-the-top egotistical asshat breeder trifecta:

1) Not worming/doing feet
2) Not HANDLING…stuff isn’t trained appropriate to age, not even fricken halter broke. Why are we having to load purebred Polish Arabians with panels like mustangs?
3) Again, JUST TOO DAMN MANY! Stupid bitch had Thirty Eight Foals Last Year! You do not need 38 foals. If you’d had FIVE foals, maybe you wouldn’t be flat ass broke and unable to care for them. Maybe they’d have sold and you could have bought some damn wormer for the rest. I mean, even with 150 head, for $450, you could worm them all with the generic stuff from Country Supply. If you had sold one foal for, say, $2500, you could have fed a couple of your old mares hay pellet mush all year and they wouldn’t be in actionable condition now. Why is it no one can do simple math?

I mean, this is one of the mares. DEFHR has her labeled as Helania but I am wondering if she is *Candela, because the Marsha Defenders keep saying that they’re showing a 33 year old and it’s not faaaaaaair. I do not care if she is 33. She does NOT need to look like this. This is BULLSHIT. If she wasn’t 3,000 miles away, I’d love to take her and show the world just how fast she could fatten back up. I know lots of people who could do it.

I have so many questions here. One is, if she’s so famous, didn’t anybody ever visit her farm? She was extending an open invitation so clearly she was delusional about how bad some of the horses looked. I mean, someone turned her in, so kudos to them. But why is this such a surprise to the Arabian community? I’m guessing plenty of people saw her skinny, wormy stuff and thought, oh well, poor Marsha, she’s 66, and (my favorite line!) “she’s doing the best that she can.” I see her defenders running around the Internet now screaming that the skinniest horse pictured is 33. Again, so what? I have had a dozen threads showing you guys fat 30+ horses. It’s called proper care. Grace, by the way, has been verified to be age 28. Didn’t stop Darla from returning her to hog fat condition in three months.

Here’s another question: Is the young stock registered? Bet you they’re not. Another typical fail when farms get this big and the money isn’t there.

Here’s another question: Has any of this stuff been shown? Does she have horses in training, or does she simply think bloodlines are valuable enough to sell them? Sorry, but that just isn’t how it works anymore. The vast majority of horses in the world have little to no value until you put training on them. The value increases exponentially as they become (a) safe for most riders and (b) acquire a show or other performance record.

Another question: Marsha was merrily posting to the ABN board as late as April 4th. Uh, I think you had plenty of opportunities there to say, I’m overwhelmed, can anyone take some horses? People would have snapped them up. But mark my words, Marsha’s gonna come out sounding like James Leachman, soprano edition. She will say BUT THEY’RE SO VALUABLE! I wasn’t just going to GIVE them away. Well, maybe you should have before you became famous as the lady who was neglecting the largest herd of Polish Arabian horses in the U.S.

And my usual questions: Why did/does anybody need that many horses? You are not going to ride that many. You do not need one-tenth that many to have a successful, super high quality breeding program. Financial misfortune can happen to any of us, as can a health problem, and planning for any eventuality means keeping your horses in excellent condition, training up to date, etc. If you can’t keep everybody up to date on all the basic care (feed, deworming, feet trimming, dental), all the time, you have too many. It’s just not that confusing a concept.

It will be interesting to see this one play out, but I am definitely siding with the Arabian community on this point: It is ridiculous to remove these horses from the gene pool just because they had the misfortune to be owned by the wrong person. To me, it’s like Prohibition. What, now no one can have a beer because SOME people weren’t responsible with their drinking? Stupid. The breeding quality animals should stay in the gene pool and the culls should be gelded/go out on no-breedin contracts. I wish I could just send the whole herd to someone like Sheila Varian to evaluate and make that call. Now THAT would be a sensible solution! What do you think?

P.S. As to any rescue wars here: Pipe up! If you have horses from this seizure, feel free to post who you have with your information and link to donate. We’ll settle who is doing the work here pretty easily, won’t we?

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Leachman turned out to have EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWENTY NINE HORSES

Those of you familiar with my blog know that I don’t use the term BYB in any way that has a particular relationship to backyards or lack of facilities. You are a BYB in my book if you do ANY of the following:

- breed stuff you can’t afford to feed, vet and trim regularly
- breed stuff you don’t handle and train appropriately to its age
- breed registerable foals but then fail to register them
- breed without researching to ensure that there is a strong market for the resulting foals (and I don’t mean the kill pen)
- Keep crippled mares endlessly pregnant as baby machines. I don’t mean mares that are a little off at the trot. I mean mares with huge knees that can hardly walk to the water trough.
- breed with no attention paid to avoiding genetic diseases
- keep horses in an inappropriate facility, including ANY barbed wire, extra credit for foals out on barbed wire
- breed anything, even nice horses, in such an excess number that you drive down the entire market for them.

Leachman fails on every single count here. Eight hundred and twenty nine! And of course, wild as hell since they’re either unhandled or haven’t been handled in years. Even nice broodmares, running with a herd, quickly become convinced they are wild mustangs from the prairie. Anyone who has ever worked on a breeding farm and had to go get ONE MARE out of the herd to see the vet knows this. Never a good time. But at least on a proper farm, mares are pulled away periodically, for vet care, for hoof trims, for deworming. These mares probably have not been touched in years, so that even if they had some training on them at one time, it is going to be a challenge to get them back to usefulness.

Then you have to look at the hoof neglect. You know, hooves are not hedges. You can’t just let them overgrow for years and years and then take a clippers to them and all is well. Neglect leads to problems that aren’t always fixable. A lot of these mares are coming out crippled, and it didn’t help that Leachman left leg bands on them that cut into the skin, as described in the article.

And, really, I don’t know why I’m discussing this at all since the vast majority of them are going to be on a dinner table within weeks. They’re all going up for sale. Who do YOU think is buying?

Let’s remember from the original story that the reason Leachman didn’t sell them off earlier was that he didn’t feel they would go for enough money and, you know, these are his Rare Speshul Unregistered Quarter Horses we’re talking about here. Well, dickhead, now they’re mostly going to be Rare Speshul Unregistered Quarter Horse Steak. Hope you’re proud of yourself, you piece of lazy, selfish, irresponsible shit. One man’s ego is now going to lead to the slaughter of the majority of 800 plus horses that did not even need to exist in the first place if no one was going to do anything with them. Not to mention that it has cost the poor people of Billings six figures and counting to deal with cleaning up this moron’s mess. I’m surprised he doesn’t get tomatoes thrown at him in Wal-Mart.

Again (and I know I’m preaching to the choir), it’s not like growing carrots! You can’t just MAKE them, you have to TRAIN them and put WORK into them to make them worth anything! And especially so when they are nothing special to begin with. Argue with me all you want about which AQHA lines are the better ones, these AREN’T the hot bloodlines that sell for good money. These are long-backed, common headed foundation breds. Do some people like them? Sure. But they don’t have the same value to the average buyer, standing there in a field, as they would if they had pedigrees full of close-up ties to top cutting horses, reining horses, or western pleasure horses.

Those of you who think they’re awesome horses, hey, get on out there and bid – I’d love to hear that some of them did not go straight to kill, but I am not holding my breath. Leachman should be drawn and quartered for this spectacle of senseless suffering. A lightning bolt should just come down and hit him. What a pig.

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While most of us actually ARE doing other stuff to help horses in our real lives (and yes, we do have them), I want to point out that bitching on the Internet, in of itself, creates change.

Remember this blog entry? Even Pigs Can’t Live Like That

Well, not only did the horses get saved but now the owners got charged.

From the article: “After photos showing the living conditions of 10 horses in Copperopolis, including this one, began circulating on the Internet, the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office and Animal Services removed the animals from the property.”

So every time someone asks what you’re doing to help horses…you’re having enough guts to stand up and bitch until someone helps them!

And that DOES WORK!

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Wallowa County authorities seize exotic horse ranch; some horses found dead, others neglected, sheriff says

As none of us are surprised to hear, Seize the Day turned into Seize the Horses. The Sheriff has finally gotten off his posterior and taken that psycho Byrde Lynn Hill’s horses away. Well, the ones that are still alive, anyway. And they can’t physically take them away, because now they are having a blizzard down there. Hey, Sheriff? I told the world about this on December 7th…start paying attention to my blog and you won’t have to haul hay in a blizzard two-and-a-half months later. And you might have actually saved some of those lives.

As I noted before, one of the most shocking elements here is that the woman who created this trainwreck has her doctorate. She’s not dumb. She might be nuts. But I’m guessing she’s not even clinically insane. She’s just another asshat who created a mess and walked away from it. Out of sight, out of mind. Can’t see those dying horses from your home in Seattle, can you Byrde? Don’t have to watch them and have your little emotions hurt by seeing their suffering (or more likely, by having to think about the loss of “your dream,” because we all know this is ALL about you and ZERO about the horses, don’t we?). Can just pretend everything is fine down there at the farm, right?

I’d love to interview her. I am sure she has, as my mom used to say, more excuses than Hector’s got pups for this situation. Might make for a good Youtube video, anyway! I certainly hope Wallowa County gets angry enough about the cost and the work this dumb bitch has created to prosecute the hell out of her. I know better than to hope they will get angry enough about the unnecessarily dead, beautiful Lusitanos.

When I hear something about the case, or when horses will be available to adopt, I’ll let you know. I can see some really nice rescue success stories coming out of this disaster, and if you ever wanted a $25,000 Lusitano, I’m guessing you’ll be able to get your hands on one for $500 sooner than later. And given how upset IALHA was with her anyway, I’m guessing you’ll get your papers. At least that’s going to be a win for the good homes wanting one of these horses!

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