Hoskins vs ASPCA

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The fight continues.

One photo shows gray clumps of manure caked to a horse's belly.

Another shows a horse standing in a stall filled with a sloping pile of frozen manure.

A third shows SPCA employees leading a horse whose rib cage is visible through its coat.

The SPCA Serving Erie County on Thursday released the photos, taken when the organization confiscated 73 horses from an Aurora farm in March.

The organization handed out the images after a State Supreme Court justice urged the SPCA and farm owner Beth Lynne Hoskins to settle their standoff.

Hoskins insists she treated the horses well, and she wants them returned, while the SPCA said the photos show the horses were neglected and they should stay with the SPCA.

"The conditions were terrible — those animals were suffering," said Larry Robb, president of the SPCA's board of directors.

The SPCA's release of the photos to news organizations is the latest salvo in the bitter fight between the SPCA and Hoskins over the seized horses.

The SPCA said it has spent more than $200,000 caring for the horses since March and its officials want Hoskins to pay for the animals' care.

But Hoskins said the release of the images is part of the SPCA's "vilification" of her and insisted the photos don't show neglect.

"Unsightly is not unsanitary," Hoskins told The Buffalo News.

My room is unsightly. That's just disgusting. If you don't think it's so bad, then maybe you should stay there for a night or two.

The SPCA seized 130 animals — 73 horses, 53 cats and four dogs — from Hoskins' 50-acre farm.

Hoskins has pleaded not guilty to 10 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty under the state Agriculture & Markets Law. The criminal case is proceeding in Aurora Town Court.

The question of whether Hoskins will have to post a bond to pay for the care of the horses while they are in SPCA custody, or whether she can get the horses back, will be answered in State Supreme Court.

The two sides are to return to court July 12, when the SPCA will press its case that Hoskins — and not the SPCA's donors — should pay for the horses' care.

The SPCA raised about $200,000 from donors for that purpose, Robb said, but that money is gone.

The SPCA on Thursday complained that State Supreme Court Justice Joseph R. Glownia urged the two sides to compromise, by returning some of the horses to Hoskins, before reviewing the organization's evidence of alleged neglect.

How would a compromise solve anything? You can't care for horses from jail.

The judge suggested the SPCA would oversee the care of the horses after they are returned to Hoskins while she would pay for the care, Robb said.

The SPCA wants the judge to review the photographs before making any such decision because the organization believes they demonstrate Hoskins can't care for so many animals.

Robb cited photos that show a horse with an injured hoof — Hoskins said one horse had a pre-existing hoof condition, managed with trimming — and another living in a stall with a floor covered in a steeply sloping pile of manure.

Pre-existing hoof condition called what exactly? Somehow I don't think standing in mud and manure would help that anything.

"It took four weeks to get the manure out of those horses," Robb said.

Another photo released Thursday showed several cats in the corner of a barn, next to a manure-filled sink.

One of Hoskins' attorneys, Barry N. Covert, said it was "absolutely inappropriate" for the SPCA to release the photos and make critical comments to reporters because the case should be resolved in court.

Because you know what will happen if those pictures are released, don't you? Because people will learn about the case and you'll have to work a little harder to prove that animals don't matter.

Covert and fellow lawyer George V.C. Muscato provided a letter from a U.S. Department of Agriculture conservationist that, in general, defends some of Hoskins' practices.

John R. Whitney, a district conservationist with the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service, said that spring is a season when horses' coats can get muddy and manure can stick to the longer hairs.

I've known a few horses. But I have yet to have found one that was okay while covered in mud and manure. While I will admit that some horses will go out of their way to roll in mud, I highly doubt there are horses that will roll in manure in their stalls. And if they do, you wait until it dries and go out and groom them.

"This is not necessarily a problem for the animals or any indication of neglect or abuse," Whitney wrote in March.

He also wrote that a bedded manure pack can help keep animals more comfortable than they would be on a hard floor in a stall or barn, even if conditions get sloppy, as long as the horses' hooves are closely monitored.

I'm not even going to respond to that. I'm just amazed one of the horses didn't slip and fall. I had a mare that hated mud once. Hated it so much that you had to coerce her to walk through it to get to the pasture gate in the spring. I always made sure to walk her to the water trough after every ride to make sure she was drinking.

Robb responded that the stalls had rubber mats, buried under up to three feet of manure.

Whitney added that older horses can appear "thin" or "bony" as part of their natural age-related decline and not because they are malnourished.

There's a difference between old and malnourished. A big difference. I know a very handsome old grade horse. No one really know exactly how old he even is but we estimate over thirty. He's not thin at all and I know a large number of people that have ridden him bareback.

Hoskins' lawyers said she is a highly regarded Morgan horse breeder and capable of caring for her horses, many of which are more than 20 years old.

Hoskins said the presence of frozen manure and mud in the stalls isn't "ideal," but the SPCA raid was conducted just before the farm's spring cleaning.

"Nobody feels worse about it than me, but it's not a crime. And nobody can produce any science that shows that those horses were damaged from being dirty," she said