Paraneck account

[GenuineRisk]

A friend of mine adopted three of the yearlings at Paraneck- she's been in touch with the first person to discover some of the horses at a killpen, who sent her this very heart wrenching account of finding the horses. She (the author) said I was welcome to repost it here- thought you might find it interesting. It's verbatim:

"It nice to hear from you and thank you for contacting me. yes I was the first one to find the paraneck mares and it was a disturbing sight.Not just because they were in a meat pen waiting to go for slaughter in Canada but because of the condition they were in. The dealer was horrified of the shape that they were in. He had 3 of the worst in the barn with blankets. We talked on how someone could do this to the horses and that it was sick. I just wish I could of rescued more. I rescued yeah baby yeah, Lucky Val and Casa Eire Of the paraneck mares. They are all doing very well and look great. Lucky Val was 4 years, baby was 11 and Casa 18. Casa followed me around the meat pen and would put her head on my shoulder she was the first pick to get on my trailer and she was the only one that we could catch. She is a wonderful horse with a personality that screams I love people and life. She also rides like a dream, smooth, classy and safe. Just think I'm sure she had not been ridden in many years and she rode right off after getting weight on her and rid of the lice problem. All the horses were balding with lice, No glitter in their eyes and scared to death running around in that pen. It was very hard to pick I could not catch them they all were almost baled and they were almost all bay in color. They only had neck bands around their necks and numbered tags on their hindquarters. I wrote down the numbers on the horses to get on the trailer. We had to heard them in a small pen and pin them in a corner to catch them to put halters on them. Except for Casa she stayed with us the whole time. From what I heard Casa was purchased for a sum of around 250,000 she is a black type mare that came from Ireland and one of the other mares that did get shipped cost around 300,000 after I brought the horses home I started to track them down by their name tags. The tattoos confirmed them. I started to make phone calls to some people to try to get the rest of the mares out before they were to ship. I had no clue who Ernie was until I started to make the phone calls on trying to get more money for the rest of the horses. I have rescued many more since March of 2009 all different breeds I do this out of my own pocket put some training on them and try to find loving homes for them. Some are now dressage horses, trail horses, show horses and kids horses. People think of thoroughbreds as crazy and not safe horses. I have found that they make some of the best horses. They don't spook to much because of all the action on the track. Once they realize they are not going to race any more they make some of the greatest horses. I know I have made several into lesson horses. Thank you for your time and effort in having a racehorse foundation to save more OTTBs the meat pens are filled with OTTBs they are some of the best sellers for the meat dealers they are small boned. you will always find the meat pens filled with thoroughbreds and standerbreds. If more people would realize that these horses are not as bad as the world makes them out to be or maybe better horsemen maybe we would not have so many in the slaughter pen."

Here's an April 24 blog post from the NYTimes about the horses, including a nice photo of Lucky Val enjoying her new home.

[DerbyCat]

Wow, that is a depressing account... and the part about the one horse following the person around sounds like so many rescue horses I know. People just don't realize how much horses love people, want to be with people and will do anything to make people happy - at least these were saved.

May I have permission to pass this story on to some rescue groups I know? Folk need to know about this type of stuff, the more awareness, the more help we can get for other horses in this type of situation.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by DerbyCat

Wow, that is a depressing account... and the part about the one horse following the person around sounds like so many rescue horses I know. People just don't realize how much horses love people, want to be with people and will do anything to make people happy - at least these were saved.

May I have permission to pass this story on to some rescue groups I know? Folk need to know about this type of stuff, the more awareness, the more help we can get for other horses in this type of situation.

I imagine it'll be just fine, as Joe Drape mentioned her in his blog, but let me check and get back to you. I'll PM you as soon as I hear.