Earlier this year Mugly posted a story on this blog about Gwen Stockebrand. We have an update – the former Olympian has finally been charged with a single count of animal cruelty in regards to her care (or rather, lack thereof!) of the mare Valerie.
If you’ve read the original story, you’ll know that two of Gwen’s horses wound up in the care of Lost Hearts and Souls Horse Rescue. Ironically, Sister, the mare who appeared to be in better condition, has since had to be euthanized due to exhibiting stroke-like symptoms. It was determined that she was experiencing bleeding her brain. Valerie, who was a one on the Henneke scale and had heart problems due to malnourishment when surrendered, has improved to about a three. Here’s hoping she has a long, happy and healthy life ahead of her still!
Over the years, I cannot count the number of times I’ve been accused of “wanting horses to go to kill/auction” and “viciously attacking an angel who only wants to help animals” merely because I called out a faux rescue on its money-grubbing, self-serving, horse-neglecting bullshit. And so there are few things that entertain me as much as when the truth comes to light and I get to say it, yet again:
Well, they got busted the other day. Here is an eyewitness account:
“Got a call this a.m. from PETA with an update of what happened last night at Cajun Country Rescue.
The State Inspectors, the Sheriff’s Department and Ruth Steinburger (sp) went to the property on June 29, 2011 and gave Anne Marie Duhon the option of ‘doing the right thing‘. To voluntarily sign over all the animals on the place. At first Anne Marie was agreeable. Then, when she realized even those she claimed to be her ‘personal’ animals were going to be seized, she went ballistic. Anne Marie tried to turn the horses loose where they would have been running on a main road. She became combative and turned dogs loose to attack the police officers and then jumped them herself. Shane Duhon then jumped in to ‘protect’ his wife and so they were both cuffed and taken into custody.
After Anne Marie backed out of signing the animals over – a Judge had to be contacted to get a seize warrant before any animals could be removed. A warrant was finally received at about 5 pm. Everyone worked until 6 a.m. on June 30, 2011 removing animals from the property. There are NO animals left at the property. It is now a crime scene.
The State Inspectors said they had never seen cockroaches that BIG & plentiful.
Charges are as follows:
Obstruction of Justice
17 counts of Felony Animal Cruelty (could go up to 29 – not all the dogs were thin)
Resisting Arrest
Felony Child Endangerment
Assault on a State Police Officer (by person and canine – and the dog WAS NOT shot
Anne Marie and Shane Duhon will be in jail unless the bail can be raised. And they are broke with nothing to sell for funds. Word is they are facing a long jail term.”
Best of all, Anne Marie is defending herself on her Facebook Page…popcorn, anyone?
I always hear that this blog is just unfaaaaair and criticizes people who don’t deserve it, but I’ll be damned if anyone has ever been able to point to someone who I said was starving horses and neglecting horses who it turned out wasn’t starving and neglecting horses. So you know, either put up or shut up…I firmly believe this blog (with the help of ALL of you who submit information to me and send pictures!) has brought to light many situations and allowed law enforcement to start investigations that have saved countless lives. I can’t remember who told me about Anne Marie, but bless you — you did a great thing here by helping to bring this to a successful conclusion!
Here is a cool program for those of you cleaning out your tack rooms and thinking of getting a new show bridle or two!
Announcing:
Five Star Tack “Bridles with Benefits”
Send a used bridle in good condition to Five Star Tack
They will give you 10% off any new bridle, AND send the used bridle to Mid-Atlantic Horse Rescue.
Five Star Bridles and Strap Goods are beautiful quality and quickly becoming the bridle of choice for eventers, show hunters, jumpers, etc.
For more information on the program go to
Read this thread on COTH starting with around page 130 here. This is high entertainment! Apparently Alisija has been barn-hopping and has landed with someone just as royally effed up as she is. Birds of a feather!
Oh…wow. Just saying. It’s amazing how every freak-show in the horse world finds each other, isn’t it?
P.S. I’m still a member of the Ain’t Killed Any! Club…we need to give out awards to people who manage on a daily basis to deal with horses with a wide variety of training issues without doing stupid shit that ends with a dead horse. Hell, I know people that do nothing BUT unhandled BLM mustangs and they are proud members of the Ain’t Killed Any! Club.
I know that you are all worried about this, and I found an absolutely wonderful discussion posted by Northwest Equine Veterinary Associates today about EHV-1, the disease we’re all terrified of. I don’t THINK you have to be a Facebook member to read this, but if you do, I’ll copy it here later.
Read that – it’ll tell you what to look for, what to do in terms of prevention and even how you can boost your horse’s immunity.
Men Arrested for Abandoning Horse …KUDOS to Riverside Animal Control – you guys ROCK! I’m trying to get personally involved in this one so I’ll let you know if that pans out. I’d really like to rehab him. Poor Thoroughbred, he never deserved any of this…he needs to be spoiled and fat and making him spoiled and fat would make me feel a lot better after my loss of my best horse last week. So cross your fingers it works out!
Can’t adopt? Why not sponsor a rescue horse…you can do so for just $25 a week (you know you spend that on coffee and/or fast food!) at Shiloh Horse Rescue. Jill has so many old cutie pies. My long time readers may remember when I outed Dreamchasers Horse Rescue on their horrible conditions and backyard breeding, and Jill stepped in to rescue numerous horses, despite having to suffer a truly vicious smear campaign against her by the Dreamchasers woman. This is one of those mares, Lovely, who is not adoptable due to having Wobblers, but is greatly enjoying her life at Shiloh and would love a sponsor!
This is a topic I thought about because I was working on it yesterday with several different horses. A flying lead change is a must for many different horse disciplines: hunter/jumper, barrel racing and other games, team penning, polo, etc. Your horse needs to be able to quickly switch over to the other canter lead when required, without breaking to a trot. Yet, this is something that you see a lot of horses and riders having trouble with. It’s common to see horses “hang” a lead – change in the front end and not in the back, getting the back end in some scrambly manner or by breaking to a trot some strides later – or not change at all and just careen around awkwardly on the wrong lead.
Here’s a good video I’ve found that allows you to see not only a clean lead change but also one where the horse hung the lead, close up.
Getting lead changes right is not helped by riders who aren’t always sure what lead their horse is on. I know that most of us (myself included) learned leads by watching the shoulders to see which was going further forward, but that’s grade school. You all need to move past that and learn to feel which lead your horse is on, without looking. (Looking equals leaning and leaning works directly against your horse’s ability to change leads). Learning to feel the lead will also help you feel the timing of the stride, and asking for a lead change at the correct time is imperative in teaching your horse to have that nice, clean lead change. It’s not that hard to learn to feel leads. You could look up at the sky and still know which leg was going forward at the walk, right? Well, start moving that up in speed. Have a friend watch you as you pick up the lope/canter on a straight line. Don’t look down and try to tell her what lead your horse picked up. Once you take away from yourself the crutch of looking down, you really will start to develop a feel for what your horse’s legs are doing that doesn’t rely upon your eyes.
Now, once you know your leads and how to feel them, how do you fix what your horse is doing? It’s all about collection. It’s easy to think that collection equals slow speed, but it doesn’t. Your horse can be collected at the gallop. A horse that isn’t collected — who is “strung out” — is hauling himself around, at whatever speed, with his front legs. The back end is just dragging around behind him, and because of that, it’s almost impossible to get the front and back end to work as a team when you want a lead change. This is when you get the change in the front but not in the back. The front change is easy – especially for the old packer school horses that many of you are riding. Changing on both ends at the same time requires more work, and if you don’t ask correctly, you won’t get it. Asking correctly means collecting the horse up and then asking for the change at the right moment in the horse’s stride. Timing is virtually everything. If you’re on the right lead and you want the left lead, you need to ask AS the left foreleg is starting to come forward. I’ve seen various discussions on how to ask. I personally put my weight over to the seat bone of the lead I want and cue with the opposite leg, and I always look in the direction of where I want to change to/go to because looking is a great body language cue to your horse about what’s next. When I rode hunters, I was taught to pick up the rein on the side of the lead that I wanted, but you don’t have that option when you are riding with one hand and, as with everything, the best riding is accomplished from the seat and leg, not the hands.
When you do get a change in front but not in back, what’s the best way to fix it? Again, I’ve seen a lot of discussion about this. You have to collect the horse up to fix it, one way or the other. You can break to a trot or almost to a trot for a stride and pick up the lead again, or you can collect the horse up at the canter and ask him to catch his back end up with his front. I think the second method is better as the horse doesn’t think he’s ever going to get to do a simple change, but if your trainer thinks that the little trot step makes for a prettier fix in the show ring, I’m not going to argue with her. When I was showing, you Did.Not.Break.Ever – even the slightest stride of trot meant you were out of the ribbons – but since that time I’ve seen a lot of kids who break to get the change placing over the valiant kid who keeps on trucking and tries to fix the lead without breaking gait. However, from a horse training perspective, IMO if you want the horse to really learn the change, it’s better to collect him up at the canter and ask him to fix it without breaking gait.
One thing that I’ve had work with a horse that doesn’t want to do a flying change is doing it outside in a big field. Take the arena walls away and let him motor on a little bit and do figure 8′s, serpentines, whatever, at the canter. I’ve had it work great, and once they get the feel of doing a flying change with weight on their back (if you’ve noticed, they can ALL do it just FINE in the pasture!) it tends to carry over.
I’d love to discuss some of the other problems with lead changes today. One that I see a lot is horses becoming anxious about changes to the point where every time you canter a circle through the middle of the arena, they are hopping and bopping and anticipating. Right now I have a horse to ride that changes, but throws in a serious prop on her front legs, stiff legged and unpleasant, with the change. She is a conformational train wreck of the type that I’ve noted before can often be found in polo (I really must take a picture…long as a train, god-awful upside down neck) and she canters in general like Pepe le Peu, so none of this is helping her out. I’m sort of fascinated by the challenge of wondering if I could get this critter to be more soft and flexible despite how she’s put together, but it might be an example of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear! That said, I’m pretty sure there is a way to keep the forward motion up and remove the prop…assuming my bad lower back survives the process, LOL.
So let’s talk about it. Does your horse(s) do a flying change? Have you managed to teach it to a resistant horse or overcome problems with it? What advice can you offer? What problems are you having? And yes, I fully expect to read about how I have given terrible advice because the entire process/philosophy of teaching the change differs so much from discipline to discipline. While it’s the same movement in dressage, you guys ask for it differently than someone does for, say, barrel racing or polo. And those disciplines are doing it differently than the Western Riding people are doing it. So let’s try not to have a huge War of the Methods here — the point is that this tends to be a training challenge for a lot of horses/riders in a lot of different disciplines and the goal of today’s post is to try to help find some solutions! In that vein, if you choose to post video to show what your horse is doing, (Youtube will embed on the blog), I will NOT let any comments get through that are nasty or not constructive. So please keep your comments in line with what you’d say to someone in person if you were teaching a lesson. Thanks!
Another update: The Tale of the Crazy Friesian Lady!
I just heard someone who saw Broadway here on the blog adopted her! Woohoo! I want updates…I love that little mare! Today’s Shiloh Horse Rescue adoptable horse is Cricket, a cutie-pie of a Morab. She was just a mom when Shiloh got her, and is green under saddle but she’s sweet and has a lot of potential. Check her out if you’re near Nevada!
