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.

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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 1^st 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.

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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

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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:

http://auburnjournal.com/detail/203964.html?content_source&category_id=2&search_filter&user_id&event_mode&event_ts_from&event_ts_to&list_type&order_by&order_sort&content_class=1&sub_type&town_id

“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.

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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.

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This photo comes from a Hackney Stud in South Africa where their grasp of the concept of training has clearly been confused with that of torture.

Apparently the genius’s that thought this one up feel this “method” will help build those attractive neck muscles that we all love so much – you know, the ones that are typically the byproduct of proper training and self-carriage.

These people were investigated by the Highveld Horse Care Unit (HHCU) where the inspectors found out from employees that the horses stand tied up like this for two hours at a time, repeated throughout the day.  Unfortunately the article posted on HHCU’s website was pretty scint on details so we have no idea if anything is going to happen to this Stud, or if the horses are going to be saved or what have you.  There are a number of discussions taking place on different forums about this, however, so if you want to hear what others have to say, check out Horse Grooming Supplies Forum and/or Horse Forum.  Or, if you feel so inclined, there’s an online petition to the South African government to stop this assholery.

Even body builders will tell you that you don’t hold a pose for two hours!  Come on people!  Anyone who’s ever been to a gym or done a workout in their lifetime knows that you do reps, not just grab and hold.  The repetition is what contributes to building muscle.  The kind of muscle that torturous methods such as this build are bracing and of no practical use.  This is done for aesthetics, pure and simple.  These horses are going to break down at a younger age than those with proper training and muscling.  It’s a sad statement on the way the horse industry is, worldwide, that it’s more important to have a “pretty pony” than a working horse that will last you a long time.  Do these people, the buyers of these abused horses, not consider the fact that they’ll get more bang for their buck from a horse that will perform for 10 years, as opposed to 2.  And make no mistake, this is abuse.

This also raises another issue, are horses so indispensable that people will buy them, use them for 2 years and then throw them away?  Oh wait, we already know the answer to that one, don’t we?  The racing and futurities industries are prime examples.  You know, they say that different cultures have different values and it can be hard to understand their points of view, traditions, way of thinking, etc.  And yet, apparently the devaluing of animal life is ubiquitous.  Hooray, we all have something in common.  Wanna hug it out?

For anyone daring to question the harshness of these abominable “methods”, just taking a look at the photo.  You can practically see the veins pulsating from the horse’s shoulder.  For anyone who’s ever watched an episode of House, Grey’s Anatomy, Doogie Houser – even Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman knew that this was indicative of an elevated heart rate.  Since we know the horse didn’t just run a freaking marathon, I think we can safely conclude that the horse’s heart rate is elevated due to pain – possibly from the unforgiving twine forcing so much pressure on the poor horse’s jaw it looks like it might snap off at any second.  Can you imagine how much damage that can, and likely is, doing to the horse’s musculoskeletal structure?  For anyone who’s ever had a chiropractor (or any medical professional along those lines) out for their horse, you know that one of the first things they check is the temporomandibular joint.  If there’s something out of alignment in this joint, it can cause pain issues exacerbated by flexion at the poll – hmmm and how exactly were these Hackney’s supposed to be traveling?  Could it be: flexed at the poll?! How willing (able) do you think they’ll be to trot out in the proper headset, featuring those neck muscles those jackasses tortured them to get?

Anyone else recall one of the issues surrounding rollkur?  The fact that the extreme overbent position compromised the horse’s ability to inhale sufficient air? (Check out Sustainable Dressage’s article for more info on why/how this affects the horse’s ability to, umm, breathe.)

Once again, horse abuse proves to be completely senseless.  Good job humanity, you really know how to make a girl proud to be a part of the species.  Bra-fucking-vo.

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Marion County deputies recover eight malnourished horses from “deplorable” conditions in South Salem field

There are some out there who would say that the out-of-state owner did her duty by making arrangements with a local person to care for the horses.

To this I say: Bullshit

You can’t just pay someone and be done with it. You have a duty of care to check in once in a while and make sure your hired help are, oh I don’t know, helping! Let’s see if we can’t relate this to a non-horse world scenario. Say, for example, you’re a manager at McDonalds. You hire people to do a job, you train ‘em, give ‘em some direction, whatever. Once all that is in place, do you then leave for Costa Rica? No! For better or worse, it’s your job to make sure the job is done, because ultimately it is your responsibility!

Then, of course, is the issue of there being no shelter. That’s something the owner would have found out about when she went to rent the place. Again, you can come up with a bunch of lame scenarios where the owner isn’t to blame, but let’s be honest; if you’re a responsible animal owner, any type of animal, you’re going to inspect the place you intend for your animal to live, prior to it living there! So yes, dear readers, she knew and she was ok with it.

What about the land owner?  Did they rent out 50 acres to someone they knew would bring horses onto the property?  Knowing full well there was no shelter available for the animals?

I know people who rent out a condo and they make sure to do an inspection at least quarterly.  And those people are sharing multiple walls with other tenants!  There’s some accountability there!  But for someone to rent out 50 acres and not schedule inspections?  Of course, I’m making a judicious leap and assuming they didn’t inspect the property and had no knowledge of the starving and deceased horses (at the very least that would decrease the property value, right?) on their land.

None of the above is meant to excuse the behavior of the “caretaker”.  I just feel that their involvement, or lack thereof, is obvious.  They are, after all, the ones who willfully and cruelly neglected all aspects of these poor horse’s care.

So who’s responsible?  The owner for not checking in?  The landlord for willfully turning a blind eye?  Certainly the caretaker is.  Any way you slice it, body scores of 0.5 don’t happen overnight. Not to mention six – SIX! – dead horses on the property. It’ll be interesting (and presumably horrifying) to see whose horses those turn out to be…

I don’t claim to be an expert in decomposing animals, but it would seem to me that their being in different stages of decomp means that they died at different times, right? Still with me? Ok then, doesn’t that sound like they probably died from starvation? Logic being that different animals use up fats stores quicker than others and that alpha horse(s) likely chased the others off what little food they managed to find. This is supported by the fact that the remaining horses were found with body scores ranging from 0.5 to 1.5. Albeit that’s not much of a range.

The little bit of reassurance we can take from this latest episode of horse abuse?  The swift and effective action of Marion County – they acted immediately upon receiving the phone call about the horses, got a vet out, blanketed them, brought food and water and got them the hell outa there ASAP.  Good job guys and thanks from all the horse lovers!

For pictures of the poor remaining horses, check out our Facebook page.

For information on the rescued horses and/or how you can help them, check out Strawberry Mountain Mustangs (took in 5 of the surviving horses) and United SPCA (took in 3 of the horses)

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Samantha Mildbredt @ CBER – She’s up to her usual tricks.  Really, nothing new, just the fact that she has resurfaced and needs to be drowned again (possibly literally…).  We’ll be looking in to this more to see if we can’t get some more details and help raise awareness.

Jaci Rae Jackson/Credit Card - We don’t really have an update on this one.  From the linked to article we understand the preliminary hearing is set for March13.  If anyone has come across some updates would you please email us at fuglyblog@hotmail.com?

Kelsey Lefever/Beau Jacques – Her preliminary hearing is apparently set for tomorrow.  Hopefully we’ll have more news for you next weekend.

ArkLaTex/Many, LA rescue – Apparently the DA is currently reviewing information on this case to determine how best to proceed.  Here’s hoping he can get enough information to charge in to court one day soon and demand 20+ years jail time (hey, we can dream) for Charles Ford, owner according to the linked to website.

Dorian Ayache/Mance Reed, 38 horse accident in Tennessee – No updates on this one either unfortunately.  We checked a few of the news sites that originally were all over this thing, but maybe now it’s not so dramatic without a crapload of horses trapped in an overturned semi…  Again, if you have found any updates, please email us at fuglyblog@hotmail.com

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So we decided to offer our two cents to the investigating reporter.  Last night we sent the following email to Drew Blair.

Dear Ms. Blair,

One of our readers forwarded us a link to your article (http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/local/neighbor-concerned-over-horses-care-dbl).  Now, I don’t know if anyone has already contacted you about “cribbing” in horses and the erroneous statements made by Ms. Vanover but in case no one has, here are a few facts about horses.

-Cribbing is a behavior associated with boredom (she was correct there), but it is almost exclusively seen in stabled horses.  Horses with grass to eat will not engage in this behavior. 

-I have never, in over 15 years of experience, seen a horse crib on a tree, branch or side of a building.  In fact, I think it may be impossible – here’s a description of cribbing from horse-cribbing.com “Typically when a horse cribs, he sets his upper teeth on an object (usually about chest level), presses down, opens his mouth, arches his neck, and pulls back” while sucking in air (hence why cribbing is also called “wind sucking”).  In fact, if nothing else, it is easier for a horse to crib from a horizontal fence (as seen behind Ms. Vanover – which showed no evidence of cribbing) than a tree, branch or building.  Certainly a horse could chew the trees and the side of the building but they would only do this if grass was not available (as in if they were in a sand enclosure rather than a field) or they’re trying to prevent starvation.

-The trees and branches in your video were stripped of bark – that is not indicative of cribbing – there should have been a groove/indentation for the horse to get a foothold (for lack of a better word) with their teeth, allowing them to pull back and suck in more air.

-If the horses had sufficient food in their field, they wouldn’t be leaning so hard on a fence as to almost collapse it, just to get at a few blades of grass.  If horses have adequate food, they are not concerned with whether or not the “grass is greener on the other side”

Grass alone is not enough to keep a horse at a healthy weight, especially in the winter – and especially if there are too many horses on too small a piece of land (there are other factors to consider, but aren’t strictly relevant here).

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the rescue efforts that recently occurred on a farm in Many, La. – that was a hell of a lot worse than this case but these horses were starving and fed from trees.  Some of them suffered from impaction colic due to the in-digestibility of the bark they ate from trees. 

I don’t know what Ms. Vanover’s education or experience with horses is, but it is clear that she does not have their best interests at heart.  Hopefully this helps clear up her statements. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

COME ON! For once abuse is being reported before the horses reach a Henneke body scale of 1 and they’re going to do nothing?!

Ok, ok, mini outburst done.  We understand that if an animal control officer shows up and the horses have proper food and water there’s probably nothing they can do.  But show a little compassion – or at least pretend to while being video taped – and promise to come back and check up on them.  Otherwise, the next time you hear about these horses (in a few months time) they will be in “grave danger”, or in the grave itself.

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First the facts:  On January 6, 2012 approx. 60 horses were seized from O’l Home Place in Many, Louisiana.  Not all of those are still alive and certainly none of them are well.  According to one article, rescuers have so far found the bodies of 25 dead horses on the farm.  The owner of the horses, Charles Ford, was arrested but is already out on bail.

Donna Keen, who took part in the rescue efforts, wrote this account of conditions on her blog:

On January 7th and 8th 2012 Remember Me Racehorse Rescue and the Louisiana Horse Rescue assisted the Sabine Humane Society in conducting a 60 horse seizure at a thoroughbred breeding and training farm in Many, Louisiana. There were originally reported to be about 120 horses on the property but by the time the case was built and the seizure was conducted half of them were either missing or deceased.

Not only were the horses at Charles Ford’s farm in horrid condition there was a large dog kennel full of hungry barking dogs with deceased dogs only feet away. There were also pigs and goats on the property that looked like staggering skeletons.

As this is an ongoing rescue effort, there really aren’t that many facts to report on.  Of the articles we were able to find, they each quoted slightly different numbers.  What is clear is that this was supposed to be professional Thoroughbred breeding and training farm.

O’l Home Farm LLC (Suzanne Ford listed as the owner) was still running horses at Louisiana Downs as recently as this past September.  William R. Young is listed as the trainer in the track’s racing form.  According to Remember Me Horse Rescue Mr. Young was on the property during rescue efforts and was commenting on the condition of some of the horses. In his eyes, the following emaciated grey mare was “not too bad” and  he “laughed when she was being difficult to catch stating she couldn’t be too bad if she could still get away from” the woman trying to catch her.

Grey Mare  (You’ll have to click; it’s refusing to embed.  Grrrr.)

Apparently the trainer also told volunteers that “the owner will try and retain ownership of some of these horses.  The Humane Society representative did tell us that this was his understanding and that in the end the Judge would make the final decision.”  Unfortunately, and here’s where the law sucks, according to this article, Ford “has 15 days to post bond on all animals he wants to retain.”  That bond is set at $1,500 per horse.  Although if he’s hoping to claim multiple horses, than at least that amount is slightly more substantial than what bail was set at for Ford himself.

After all, you might be asking yourself, as we certainly were, how did this monster make bail when he can’t even afford to feed his goddamned horses?  Naturally, we had assumed that since the DA is charging for each horse that bail would somehow reflect the number of charges.  Nope.  It was just $2,500.  That’s it.  The bastard wouldn’t shell out for edible hay, but bail he managed in a heartbeat!  Of course, $2500 doesn’t go far when you’re talking about this many horses, especially in their current condition.  According to the Louisiana Horse Rescue Association it’s going to cost around $450/day to maintain the remaining herd.  That bail is worth just over 5 days to these horses.

From a TB Champions forum: “Louisiana Horse Rescue Association recently posted this list of dead/alive broodmares, given to them by Charles Ford, owner of the farm. Obviously, many yet remain to be verified. I’d heard that previous owners of Crossed Wire were actually going to go to Sabine Parish, LA, hoping to find her alive and to take her into their care. Unfortunately, it appears that that will not be possible.

ALIVE:
Auto B A Pro
Beautiful Lyrics
Beep Beep
Brassie Road
Bunny Cat
Cayla’s Playmate (euthanized during rescue))
Da Vinna
Dance Recital
Daring Tru (found dead horse with this collar)
Dillydalydeed
Fabulous Gamble
Formal Blossom
Galorious
I Dream of Jeanie D
Jewelry Talks
Le Big Time (claims to have given away)
Maggie’s Missy
Monita’s High Stepper (claims to have given away)
Moonlight Mango
Nassau Bound
Radcliff (claims to have given away)
Salty Cowgirl
Sattidy’s Girl
Sheikra
Tactical Vixen

DEAD:
Algebra
Ambitt’s Bullet
Anti Versay
Avie’s Trick
Bemybabytonite
Beyers Fortune
Call Me Eppi
Claudcat
Crossed Wire
Flattermeforever
George Sand
Great Aunt Alice
I Had To Laugh
Invalidate
Lady Di’s Kipper
Lissanisky
Miss Salty Gift
Notice
Ohnoitsmotherinlaw
O’Nora
Party Dreams
Pewter Power
Ralina
Samuri Dancer
Smokin Bonnie
Tiff’s Problem
Winterland”

In case you’re wondering, that’s 27 dead mares that the owner himself admits to.  What possible defense can he come up with?  Money issues aren’t going to cut it, especially considering the farm was still breeding and racing horses within the past year!

There are two things in particular that we find especially disturbing about this case.

The first is the incredible disparity in condition of the horses at this farm.  While the broodmares and the babies were being left to fend for themselves (and dying off as a consequence), the “training” horses were stalled and in relatively good condition.  How can someone knowledgeable enough to get horses in race shape just look on as others starve to death?  Which brings us to the second thing – these guys were supposed to be pros.  As much as we get after the backyard breeders and the irresponsible ammies, it pisses us off that much more when people fuck up at this level.  They’re bloody well supposed to know better.

And just in case you weren’t depressed enough, here’s another abuse story from the southern US.  In this case 16 horses and 2 donkeys were recently seized from a Missouri farm.  According to a neighbor, he’s been complaining about the place for four years and 42 horses had died on the property in that time period.

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