Posts Tagged ‘news stories’
Cesar Parra: Accused of Horse Abuse (Updated)
Dr. Cesar Parra appeared in court on April 5th for charges pressed against him by the Hunterdon, New Jersey SPCA and Trudy Mirada on behalf of William PFF. According to Ms. Miranda, William PFF has permanent head tilt along with vision and hearing loss due to an accident during a training session with Cesar Parra. William PFF, a 4-year old Hanovarian Stallion, was brought to Piaffe Performance to prepare him for his Hanovarian Stallion Licensing and start to campaign him as a stallion.
Here is his story :
Dr. Parra put William PFF on the lunge with the reins from the bridle tied to the saddle and pully rein system then proceeded to work him. While in the process of lunging, William PFF got distracted by another horse whinnying outside of the arena and in the process of trying to lift his head to see the other horse he hit the end of the line, reared up and flipped over backwards, hit his head causing him to go into shock and convulsions.
Ms. Miranda’s statement reads as follows:
“The trainer tried to regain his attention by pulling on the inside pulley rein, which signaled to William to stop abruptly mid-stride, forcing his head up. Unfortunately, due to his momentum coupled with the tight physical restriction of the reins, the laws of physics took him off his feet and over backwards. Once on the ground, he struggled to get back up, but the tight rein restricted him from picking up his head and would not allow him to stand. William PFF was bleeding from the nose, convulsing and went into shock. Stable staff poured water over him to bring down his temperature, and he got a shot of Banamine, and it took nearly five hours to get the animal to his feet with the aid of several people and lunge lines.”
According to several articles he was in the presence of not only the owner but several other observers as well.
One of the spectators stated “Without warning and unpredictably, apparently in response to an outside stimulus, the horse suddenly exhibited dangerous behavior, reared, lost his balance and fell over backwards striking his head on the ground.”
Dr. Parra continues to state he “Is deeply saddened that the horse was injured, but categorically denies any allegation of cruelty, abuse, gross negligence, recklessness or any other inappropriate conduct in the handling of the horse. Sometimes horses are injured in the course of being ridden and trained because of their unpredictable behavior without any inappropriate riding or training method involved.”
Ok, I have a few issues with this story. Dr. Parra is being charged with animal abuse for doing the job he was hired to do. If the owner felt the training technique of the trainer was wrong she should have said something. Why pay massive amounts of money to someone if they are going to work your horse the way you don’t want them worked. Your horses rely on you to be their voice, their saving grace, the one person to grab the rope from an abusive handler and tell them to stop. Her story doesn’t make sense and it comes off as someone who doesn’t want to pay their vet bill so they’re going to sue the trainer for damages. I also want to know where her physics degree is because what she says doesn’t add up.
Let me get “Big Bang Theory” on ya for a minute. Newton’s Second Law (Law of Motion) : When a force acts on an object, the object accelerates in the direction of the force. If the mass of an object is held constant, increasing force will increase acceleration. If the force on an object remains constant, increasing mass will decrease acceleration. In other words, force and acceleration are directly proportional, while mass and acceleration are inversely proportional. F=MA translation Force = Mass x Acceleration. In this case Dr. Parra is the outside force pushing the horse to accelerate and the horse represents the mass. The owner claims that the horse was lifted off its feet and flipped over backwards by the force of the trainer pulling on the pully rein. Now let’s think about this logically for just one moment here. I have lunged many horses in my life time as I am sure you all have too and when I’ve had to pull on the lunge line to regain my horses attention I have never had a horse get lifted off its feet and flown over itself. I have however had them turned to the inside and had their butts go flying to the outside of the arena. My force stopped the forward motion causing the object in motion to stop and face me.
They are both at fault here. The trainer tied his head in too tight of a head set which prevented the horse freedom for forward movement which caused him to go up and over and the owner saw the trainer change from the rubber reins to the solid leather reins and still said nothing. It seems people don’t get upset and sue until something goes wrong. She could have easily prevented the accident had she spoken up and stopped the training session. Had nothing happened to her horse this wouldn’t be all over horsey news.
Keep in mind this a young unpredictable stallion and anything can happen. He could have just as easily flipped over from being crossed tied. Where are all my lawyers out there? Does this woman have a case? In my opinion she doesn’t. When it comes to training unpredictable animals anything can happen. Ms. Miranda is pretty much stating the use side reins and pully reins are abuse and if used people should be sued for anything that happens to them while being used with these training tools. And honestly is suing this trainer really going to do anything for her? Will it relieve her of her guilt to her compliance of this whole affair? For all we know she could be lying awake at night wondering “what if.”
And for the record I am not siding with either party. I just so happen to see the whole picture and to me this poor horse was a victim of wrongly used training technique and poor horse ownership.
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Post by Ride Like the Wind
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Update/Correction: While Parra was scheduled to appear in municipal court on April 5th (per this article), the good people at Rate My Horse Pro have informed us that this did not actually happen.
When is it ok for the authorities to NOT do their jobs?
When an approximately 1 year old filly gets buried alive, or so it seems.
It has been reported that by March 30, 2012 this filly had been starved so badly that she was no longer able to stand. It was at that point the owners decided to dig a large hole near the fallen filly, drag her into it using their truck, and proceeded to bury her alive.
Pretty unbelievable, right? Except there are pictures and even video footage of filly and her future grave, and when it gets too dark to see, the neighbors videoing this atrocity narrate the event.
The following is an excerpt from a rescue’s website, reporting on a conversation with a girl living on the property. The report has since been taken off the website, more on that later.
“There were two horses there, one bay emaciated mare, one chestnut gelding that was also horribly thin. A girl came out of the house and Valdia confronted her. She claimed that they just moved there two days before. This was obviously a lie, since she went on to divulge information about the horses and their “racing careers”. The gelding was apparently a Standardbred and the mare apparently a Thoroughbred, although it was impossible to tell the breed under the matted muddy dull coats and jutting bones underneath. The girl mentioned a lip tattoo common in Thoroughbred racehorses and motioned to the bay mare. When Valdia asked her why they hadn’t fed the horses, she shrugged and said “We don’t like horses.” As she was questioned, she slipped and said that “Someone got drunk and hurt him” motioning to the gelding. She promptly realized that she shouldn’t have said that and wouldn’t say another word.”
Moving on. So the AC is investigating – that’s awesome! Their first stop on that investigation? The horse rescue that brought hay to the starving horses. That’s right, they went there and insisted upon reviewing their nonprofit paperwork and then took copies. Does anyone know what that’s about? Neither the rescues, nor I, can make sense of it.
What do you do if your local Animal Control doesn’t seem to care? You contact the local Sheriff’s office. Except, apparently they’re not answering their phones… One lucky person who got through reported that they were told felony charges are “pending”. Which I find particularly interesting seeing as, according to an email I received from the DA, my email was the first he had heard of the issue. I had been under the impression that criminal charges were prosecuted by the District Attorney. Quick! Someone tell them there’s a breakdown in their communication system!
WHAT’S GOING ON HERE PEOPLE?! There’s a dead filly, possibly that was buried alive. There is photographic evidence of two starving horses, one of which is already dead. Is that not enough to act upon? Can’t that get you onto the property and into a position where the body of the filly could be exhumed, then a necropsy performed to see if her lungs were full of dirt? I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV but that seems fairly logical to me. Or is there no room for logic in the legal system?
I understand it’s still pretty early in the process of investigation but the clock’s ticking! That filly was buried March 30th, that’s almost two weeks ago. If anything is going to happen, it needs to happen fast. Unfortunately it sounds like the Animal Control office has already dropped the ball. Why didn’t they investigate three weeks prior to April 1st when they were originally made aware of these people?
Why are the neighbors so afraid of them that they hide across the street filming and are so scared they’re hesitating to file a report with the DA? Could it perhaps have something to do with this excerpt from the original account reported by the rescue?
“The neighbors were interviewed and told us more and more horror stories about the people – apparently these horses had been the victims of beatings and God knows what else, for entertainment they would abuse and hurt them on top of starving them. The owners had been shooting at people, scaring the horses, had been running the horses into barbed wire fences on purpose when they were drunk, had tied the horses heads back with bits to their chests and left them like that for entire days.”
There is something wrong here, above and beyond the preventable deaths of those two horses. Grab your pitch forks and light your torches folks because we’ve got monsters among us!
Siskiyou County Animal Control
525 Foothill Drive. Yreka,CA. 96097
530-841-4028.
da@co.siskiyou.ca.us
Yreka Sheriff Department
305 Butte Street. Yreka,CA. 96097
530-842-8301.
No email listed.
da@co.siskiyou.ca.us
J Kirk Andrus (District Atty)
311 Fourth Street
Room 204
Yreka, CA 96097
For more information, check out this thread on Horse Grooming Supplies or the rescue’s facebook page.
Don’t let the rescues steal your horses too!
Our favorite humanitarian, Dave Duquette, is rallying supporters on United Horsemen’s facebook group and asking them to donate their money to aid the legal defense of Nancy Skakel. Skakel is the recent victim of the long arm of the law reaching out and snatching away her precious Shagya Arabians.
Long time readers of the Fugly Blog may remember Skakel from her previous feature seen here. Refreshed your memory? Good. And yes, that’s correct, this woman was featured TWO YEARS AGO! Back in 2010, Skakel gave away several horses because she was unable to properly care for them. Looks like she didn’t learn her lesson at all, seeing as since then she’s continued to breed and has amassed 19 horses under her “care”.
Some background information on the current Skakel debacle: 19 horses were seized and are in the care of Sound Equine Options (SEO) and Columbia Gorge Equine Network (CGEN). The condition of the seized horses is unclear at this time – there are numerous reports floating around. One thing is clear, however; Skakel has been charged with “1 count animal cruelty in First Degree” and “10 counts of transporting or confining animals in unsafe manner”.
Given that Skakel has been charged, why then is Duquette’s UH veritably slamming SEO in their facebook group (see above link)? Unless you want to spend almost an hour wading through the 147 comments associated with that particular thread, the following are some highlights.
1. Dave asks, “why people didn’t help her” – and many people second that sentiment.
-Yaaaa, people have been trying to help her since 2005! Here’s a scan of a letter to the editor of an Oregon newspaper that a kind Oregonian sent in
You cannot help people who are too stubborn, stupid, ignorant and/or proud to accept and utilize that help.
2. Someone mentions that the negative publicity Skakel has been receiving could deter her from going out and asking people for help.
-Who cares?! At some point, when your horses are starving or you’re unable to provide proper and safe shelter and turnout, you put your damn pride aside and ask for help! As nice as it may be to think so, it’s not the responsibility of others to knock on your front door and insist upon providing assistance to look after your horses.
3. One commenter questions “why are her [Skakel's] horses quarintined (sic) from all other horses at the rescue…”. You know you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when your “supporters” ask why newly rescued horses are quarantined.
4. Another commenter gem: “why don’t you put together a fund to hire a lawyer to work to help fight this crap. The publicity from that fight would do as much or more to legitimize the stand and rights of horse owners.” So now this is a political issue to gain publicity for UH? Horse owners do have rights – the right to feed and care for their goddamned horses.
(BTW – UH is accepting donations “if people want to help this poor desperate woman” who Rate My Horse Pro reported, “admitted to letting her prized stallion, Savar PFF, lay in his stall for four days [until he died] with no veterinary care or humane intervention after he was kicked by a horse.” Although, according to another commenter RMHP is run by “animal rights folks” and we can’t expect them to write objectively.)
5. A number of UH’s supporters feel that rescues are getting greedy and instead of saving animals from bad situations are, in fact, stealing the animals so they can resell them. They feel it’s a growing plague wherein rescues are reaping the monetary benefits undoubtedly associated with refeeding starved horses and retraining abused horses and then selling them at a colossal profit. Yup, that makes perfect sense.
-As a fun side note, I spoke to the people at SEO and guess what? “SEO does not have ownership or control over who will get the horses from the Skakel Case. The courts and Klickitat County will decide their future.”
6. This one’s just funny: Dave says, “we are educated and won’t take this crap and we know our rights. If you hear of this kind of shit you need to tell people to get ahold of us. Or if they try it on you DO NOT allow them to take anything. No matter what they say…”
-So, the dude who is orchestrating the opening of an equine slaughter house in Oregon wants people to fight against having horses they can’t properly care for seized… Could it be that he wants people, instead, to bring them to his “rescue and rejuvenation program” where horses that are deemed to old, ill or unfit for rehabilitation will be slaughtered? Food for thought? (Or would that just be food for the dinner table of rich Frenchmen?)
There’s a lot more stupidity contained in that thread but those are some of the main themes. Before we leave this topic, though, I want to share a post from another blog with you. It was written in response to a comment on the UH facebook group thread I’ve been referencing herein. I’m not going to say anything about it, I want to hear what you all think – come on, it’ll be fun! 
Enjoy 
Guest Post: Being Unfuckingbelievably LAZY
You all know her; y’all love her. So for a limited time, I give you: THE ORIGINAL FUGLY!!!!
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After reading two news stories this morning on Facebook, I felt compelled to write a blog entry – a compulsion I have not felt for a long time. In the months since I sold the Fugly Blog, I’ve read many stories about abuse, neglect, poor training, backyard breeding, and all of the topics I used to rant about on a daily basis. These particular stories hit a nerve.
The first was about a woman in Galesburg, Illinois. Her name is Sara J. Feighner. http://www.pjstar.com/news/x760605403/Woman-charged-with-cruelty-after-two-horses-die
Sara had two dead horses on her property. “Feighner told officials one horse had died because its hoof became caught in a fence and remained there until it died.”
OK, you got that one? Now on to the next story, which is about a man named Bob Trocha. The article states that Bob works as a “farrier, hay deliverer and personal trainer.” He had 11 horses seized.
http://lincolnnewsmessenger.com/detail/202155.html
Bob is now throwing a hissy fit because the authorities want to lop the balls off his stallion:
“He’s worth a lot of money,” Trocha said. “If I were to sign him over and just give him up, I lose the potential of selling him and making money from him.”
Bob, if Studly Pants was worth a lot of money, you would have sold him back when you had NO HAY to feed your other horses. I’ll leave it to the fine readers here to ID Mr. Oh-So-Valuable (I have no doubt you will do so quickly and save me the trouble), but allow me to put on my Madame Cleo hat and predict that this valuable stallion is worth under $1500 and has never sired a single foal of any distinction.
I’m off track though. What really gets me about Bob’s story is that his horses all desperately needed hoof care even though – scroll up – HE IS A FARRIER. Which brings me to the topic of this blog entry:
Being Unfuckingbelievably LAZY
I mean, really. Although I tend to accomplish a lot in a day, this is not because I am some amazingly high energy person. It is because I feel guilty when shit doesn’t get done. So, even when my body is screaming “crawl under the covers and stay in bed,” as it was doing at 6:00 a.m. today, my mind says “get your lazy ass up and go work your big yellow money vacuum.” My mind won. And we are talking about simply working a horse so that he continues to get fit, because fitness is good for his wonky stifle, not removing his hoof from a fucking fence so that he doesn’t DIE.
Sara is 52, not 82. She is only seven years older than I am. Sara, how exactly do you let a horse stand tangled up in a fence in your own yard til he dies? This is a criminal level of laziness. And it’s responsible for far more horse neglect and cruelty than anyone ever really wants to talk about. No, people want to give out excuses. Excuses abound:
I was sick.
I’m out of work.
I was away and a caretaker was taking care of the horses. (People use being gone for a WEEK as an excuse to blame someone else for poor condition that took months or years to get that bad)
I’m depressed. This is one of my favorites. Please raise your hand if you have ever been significantly depressed and genuinely wanted to curl up and die or even seriously thought about ending it all, but instead, because you are responsible, got off your butt and fed your kids and/or your horses and went to work anyway. My hand is up. I bet most of your hands are, too. I simply do not believe that any significant portion of society suffers from depression so crippling that they cannot function at all. Most of us have the ability to kick ourselves in the ass and get moving again, and most of us do just that. Bear in mind, I am not saying that catatonic levels of depression do not exist – just that they are rare, and that too often, depression is an excuse for lying around like a lump not even trying to improve your life or live up to your responsibilities. (Cue flaming from people who do not understand this paragraph and will feel the need to write 2000 words on their horrible depression and how I just don’t get it).
My husband left me. Another winner. If you are over the age of 16, you have, almost for sure, experienced heartbreak. I will bet your parents made you get up and go to high school anyway, crying or not. You can feed hay while you’re crying, trust me on that. This is not an excuse not to care for your animals. They didn’t dump you. Your self-esteem won’t be improved by the addition of animal carcasses to your yard.
No one ever wants to face the real reason the horses aren’t fed, or, especially in Bob’s case, the feet aren’t trimmed: That the person responsible is NOT A GOOD PERSON. They are a lazy piece of shit whose ass is grown to the couch watching the Kardashians instead of taking care of the poor, suffering animals in the backyard or trying to earn money to feed them.
Or playing Castleville, Pioneer Trail and basically every goddamn game Facebook has ever thought up. Nice, Sara. You have time to do THAT, don’t you?
https://www.facebook.com/sfeighner1
She also has time to beg for money on the Internet:
http://www.giveforward.com/mygooddeedshavebeenpunished
Give me a fucking break, Sara. If you’re a lazy piece of shit, own it. You can sit on your goddamn couch ‘til you die and the housepets you are also no doubt neglecting eat you. But put an ad on Craigslist already and say, hey, I’m a lazy piece of shit who can’t even walk outside and free my horse who got caught in a fence. Come untangle him and he’s yours!
At least then he’ll have a fighting chance, which is a hell of a lot more than he had with you.
Unlucky horses on Luck
By now, most people have heard about the three horses that died while filming the HBO series “Luck”. The first two were euthanized after breaking their legs during staged races and the third was apparently being walked back to the stables when it reared up and fell back.
The American Humane Association (AHA) has been involved from the beginning. After the death of the second horse, they worked with HBO to implement more strident regulations – including having an additional vet on site and radiographing the legs of each horse being used in production. (Not quite sure what that additional vet was for – I imagine that at that point they just stood around, death syringe in hand, waiting for the next horse to catastrophically injure itself).
The horses being used were between the ages of 5 and 8; not exactly spring chickens in the world of racing, but not ancient either. PETA’s vice president and “equine specialist” Kathy Guillermo, has been quoted objecting to the age of the horses being used in the “races”. Apparently she’s not familiar with the AHA horse specific guidelines that state “no horse under the age of 4 shall participate in horse-racing scenes” (section 8-68 e). I’m not sure why the age of the horses is a point of contention – there are races for older horses. Snarkly’s (aka JG) own OTTB was raced until he was 9! Points like this make me wonder at Kathy’s “equine specialist” title. It’s like saying the celebrities from Friday’s post are “equine specialists” because they supported an equine-specific issue. THAT DOESN’T MAKE YOU A SPECIALIST! By the way, here’s Kathy’s bio on PETA’s website – you’ll notice there’s no mention of horses in it.
What they should be focusing on, as opposed to trying to list as many possible issues as they can conjure up in their tiny PETA brains, is the health, particularly soundness, of the horses being used. The necropsies noted the first horse (a 5 year old gelding) as having a lot of damage to his suspensory (couldn’t have felt good to gallop around on that) and having banamine, bute, “Solu-delta-cortef (Prednisolone)” and “Torbugesic (Butorphanol)” in his system. According to a recent article by TheHorse.com, bute and banamine together is a no-no as it can cause renal toxicity.
There are some people who will question as to when the horse was given this cocktail of drugs – and rightfully so. It could very well have been in response to his newly shattered leg, before they determined the best course of action was a humane euthanasia. Except, PETA’s lawyer, in a letter to the president of the Pasadena SPCA (cc’d to the Assistant District Attorney), states the drugs were given prior to the injury occurring. Now, PETA may not be the best source of information, but one would hope that their lawyer is held to the same ethical standards as all others and therefore wouldn’t outright lie – at least not in a printed format that could come back to haunt her.
Unfortunately, what’s done is done. Moving forward we have to ask who’s responsible for the deaths of these horses, just how avoidable were they, and how do we prevent them from happening in the future?
According to section 8-79 of the AHA’s guidelines, they “may inspect the animals and check appropriate documentation, including health certificates and Coggins tests.” Part b. goes on to state that the “animals must be adequately trained, conditioned and prepped”. So were these horses inspected? And what are the AHA’s guidelines for inspections for horses that will be used for racing? Do they have different levels of qualifications for different purposes? Ie. a horse to be used for racing should exhibit a certain level of fitness and soundness before being “hired” for a production, while cowboy/western production will have completely different physical demands. How are they going about testing for soundness? (I wonder what would have happened if they had required radiographs from the beginning on Luck? What would the legs of those two horses looked like?)
Or are the directors and producers of the show to blame? Did they know and (perhaps more importantly) understand the physical limitations of their equine actors? Did they proceed knowing full well they were endangering the horses? All the while with dollar signs dancing before their eyes?
We see examples of it across the world. Horse abuse, particularly in the name of human profit, is a growing commodity. People seem to be dreaming up new ways to exploit and profit from them every day (and yes, I do include PETA-ites in that as well). But how do we stop it? Do we keep fighting the good fight, as we’ve been doing? Or is there a better way? Because it seems to be an uphill battle and I’m worried we’re losing ground.
