Two Dozen Rescues Looking for Homes in Florida

Story This is the new case I'm watching. Two dozen horses rescued from a man in Florida are looking for homes. These include 21 Thoroughbreds and 2 Quarter Horses ranging in age from 7 months to 19 years.

Animal Services seized the horses from owner Lope Gonzalez, who was accused of failing to care for them properly, according to a press release.

When Animal Services removed the horses from a Morriston farm, approximately half were 400 pounds to 500 pounds underweight.

A judge allowed Gonzalez to keep 10 of the 33 horses on the property, according to the release.

The rest went to Animal Services. A criminal case against Gonzalez is pending.

I'd say they weren't taken care of properly! But WHY did they let him keep ten of the horses? They should've gotten them ALL out of there! I'd like to know if he cropped the tail on the horse who's picture is on the news story. Poor baby!

Case Updates and News Tidbits

I BRING GOOD NEWS!

An arrest has been made in the Florida horse murders! Story You know he's not the only one, but I hope he's prosecuted beyond the fullest extent of the law (because I don't believe we're hard enough on animal abusers) and that the rest of them are caught VERY soon and punished as well.

A horse in Aurora, Colorado was attacked by a bear. Story The horse is expected to fully recover, but the bear got away. Prints near the scene revealed that the attacker was a bear and not a mountain lion (which seems to be the more common non-human culprit behind horse attacks lately).

In a slightly related story, another horse has been attacked by an unknown animal in Minnesota. Story While some say the attacker may have been a cougar, others say it was dogs or coyotes that attacked the horse. There were no signs of dangerous objects that the horse could've injured himself on (as they are prone to do), predatory animal tracks, or a sign of a struggle.

And our final story for the day, all horses from Hoosier Park have been barred from all Kentucky racetracks after an outbreak of strangles at Hoosier. Fifty-seven horses stabled with the two horses with confirmed cases of the disease are in quarantine. Story

Now let's move on to the case updates.

Keum H. Lee - It's been four days since her supposed court date and I have NOTHING. I do not like the lack of updates on all three of my usual sources... Does anyone happen to know what's going on with this case?

*headdesk* I have nothing this week. Well, I have something, but I'm saving that for Wednesday. It's a new case.

Freedom's Flight - From Top Yearling to Rock Bottom

Read this story Sunday and had to share it. It's heartbreaking, but the truth.

Freedom's Flight was born at one of the best racehorse breeding farms in the world, Claiborne Farms. He was very royally bred, sired by Pulpit, a descendant of Seattle Slew and Secretariat, and his dam was Heather's Flight, a descendant of Nijinsky and Northern Dancer.

On December 22, 2007, Freedom raced for the first time at Calder. He raced only three times at two and then made his first start as a 3-year-old at Gulfstream. Seconds after leaving the gate, his front leg snapped and he continued to run when his jockey failed to notice. Despite the injury, Freedom went on to finish third, but his career as a racehorse was over.

Heinlein had a choice to either euthanize Freedom or send him to Marion Brill, a horse rescuer. Brill started to rehab the still-intact stallion, but the injuries were too daunting. She sold him to a man for $500. [Some horse rescuer, huh?]

It's impossible to tell what happened to Freedom during the next two months, but at some point in time he may have hobbled along on his broken leg as a riding pony for children. [Whoever owned him ought to have their leg broken.] During that time, someone finally gelded him.

Freedom was among several horses spotted on Manual Coto's farm in July 2008. Manual has been known to slaughter cows, pigs, and chickens without the proper permits -- which he was trying to obtain at the time. [Why didn't they bust him for that????] However, Coto denies that he slaughters horses. He bought Freedom a couple of days earlier for only $100.

An SPCA vet diagnosed Freedom's Flight with severe "rain rot," which made him lose most of his hair, bites, wounds, severe rashes, abscesses under his hooves, detoxing from steroids, a fractured right cannon bone, and strangles, a potentially deadly, highly contagious bacterial infection.

Yet sick as he was, "there was something about him," Waggoner said. "I didn't want to leave that horse there. He was still so trusting of people."

She offered Coto $200. He declined the money and allowed her to isolate the horse on his land until she could make other arrangements. Freedom's Flight spent the next five weeks in quarantine, getting treatment for strangles and, finally, his broken leg.

Cuoto adopted him two weeks after he was seized and the two have bonded. Freedom is recovering well now that he has finally received proper veterinary care and was even entered in the contest to be Secretariat in the new movie about him. I don't think he won -- but it would've been AWESOME if he had.

Margaret Peterson

Say hi to the latest addition to my case watch list: Margaret Peterson. Story

A Sultan woman accused of mistreating a herd of horses has spent 30 years caring for animals and her heart is full of love for them, her husband said.

She's a self-proclaimed rescuer in my book. They all say that and yet, they don't care enough to give them proper care. If they can't afford to care for the horses, euthanize them or sell them. It's kinder than starving them to death.

“I really have a problem with people coming in and charging someone for having sick horses,” he said. “They make it seem like a state of neglect, but it’s not.”

Not providing veterinary care is neglect. So is not providing proper food, water, and shelter. If a horse is emaciated, then you're either not feeding them or there's something very wrong. "Because he's sick" is not a good excuse.

“They came in here locked and loaded and basically said, ‘We’re going to take you to jail if you don’t let us take this horse,’” Ryan Peterson said, recounting the conversation officers had with his wife. “She was scared.”

But apparently not scared into taking proper care of her animals so they wouldn't have to come back.

During one visit, an officer said none of the horses had water. As the officer watered the horses, the animals were so thirsty, they fought each other to get to the water barrels, the court document said.

One mare was on her side, with green mucus draining from her nostrils and covering her legs, Davis wrote.

That's not healthy or proper care. The horses need water and the mare needs a vet right now.

He said his wife had taken some of the horse on as rescue animals and was breeding others for sale.

1. Self-proclaimed rescuer. She takes in horses thinking she's doing the right thing and finds herself in way over her head when she can't take care of them all.

2. When royally bred throughbreds aren't selling, you PANIC. You do not go out and breed more third-rate, grade horses unless you want them to end up in Mexico.

She's in jail now on $5,000 bail.

Case Updates and News Tidbits

I'm moving these posts from Friday to Monday. This way I can write up my week's worth of posts in advance, set them to auto, and don't have to worry about all this being old news if it's still posting on Friday.

Keum H. Lee - Court date is three days away! On Wednesday. Found this story dated 9/10.

"For a practicing physician, one usual consequence of a felony conviction, or even a misdemeanor conviction, is the suspension of their license to practice medicine. The State Board of Professional Medical Conduct will, upon conviction, review the case and make a judgment as to whether the physician will lose the license to practice or not, and if the license is revoked, whether this action will be permanent or temporary

Revoke it permanently. Why would anyone want to have a doctor that's been charged for starving two horses, one of which had a halter embedded into her head?

Ernie Paragallo - Well this isn't much of an update, but...a horse was stolen from the same farm that was raided in April. Story I'd try investigating the brother first. Common sense says "do not leave questionable man alone with horse." Why there are even still horses there is beyond me...

Mary Peterson - the newest addition to my case list. This one makes me want to bang my head against the desk. I'll tell you about it Wednesday.

Now let's see what's in the news this week...

Story Three thieves went into a pasture in broad daylight and stole five horses while the next door neighbor watched.

This is why you should at least know what your neighbors look like.

You can't ride her, so why else would they take them?"

I really don't think Mexico cares if they're 23-year-old pleasure horses. Harsh I know, but true.

"They've been stalking the place for at least two months," she said of the thieves. Neighbors had seen two men and a woman ride into the pasture on Saturday and release two "skinny horses," Swint said. They returned Monday to retrieve those two and five more.

I don't really get this part. They released two horses into the pasture, left them for two days, and then came back and took those two and the other five? And the neighbors didn't find this strange? What about the owners of the five horses? They didn't notice that they had two extra horses? I know that's kind of a common thing nowadays with the economy so bad, but still.

I'm still trying to figure out why the neighbors would just stand there and watch this. I'd like to know where the owners are during this whole thing too and why it took the cops so long to get there.

Story (I did not watch the video, but there aren't any pictures on the link unless you count the one on the front of the video. It's not graphic, but you know what it is.) I think the count is up to twenty now.

With no suspect yet arrested, the motive for the killings has not been confirmed

Honestly, there's only really one possibility.

"The horse community is getting edgy and very upset," Gustinger told ABC News. "We've started community watches, people are patrolling their yards with guns to the point where some of the horse owners are looking forward to it. They're starting to hunt these people... they want it stopped," she added.

I can't even think of a punishment bad enough for these monsters...

Story And a man that deserves worse received a six-month jail sentence and is not allowed to own animals for seven years after starving a wide variety of animals, including a horse named Missy that later had to be euthanized because of her condition. Wait a minute, Missy was found in December 2007. It took them a year and a half to sentence this guy?! 11 counts of animal cruelty and he only got six months...There is no justice.

Tidbits of News

I know I usually do these on Fridays, but since I missed Friday I decided to do one today.

I have no case updates today. Not because I didn't look, but because I couldn't find anything. Though Keum H. Lee's court date is just nine days away.

Tom Selleck won the lame horse dispute. Story Apparently he bought $120,000 horse to find out that it had a medical condition that wouldn't allow it to compete. I'm sure this kind of thing happens all the time (though not usually with this much money involved) and not always with this kind of result. Yes, it's the seller's responsibility to know the horse they're selling and not lie. But it's the buyer's responsibility to know the signs, be wary, thoroughly check out and ride any horse they're considering, and get a pre-purchase vet exam. You don't trust their vet, you bring along your own. At the very least get a trusted, knowledgeable friend to come along.

Original Story Story According to the owner of the horses, one of them had their throat slit and the others were shut in a corral with rat poison. Now it's believed that the horse got tangled up in some barbed wire (which shouldn't have been there in the first place), but that still doesn't explain the rat poison and graffiti.

Story I'm honestly not sure where to begin with this one. It's the guy that advertised for executioners for his horses because he was protesting a 90-day jail sentence for something that has nothing to do with the horses. 1. People that don't care what happens to their horses should not own them (meaning the investor ladies, not the guy). 2. I'm glad the county took the threats seriously and got the horses out of there. Nine mares and fourteen stallions. I hope those stallions weren't all together or it's a miracle they haven't killed each other. 3. This guy is insane. The horses had nothing to do with the jail sentence! It was for not cleaning up the junk on his property. Now the only question is: what is he going to do when he gets out? Expect to get the horses back?

Edward Gal's 90.7% Dressage Performance

Today I'm going to share something really cool. Edward Gal and Moorland Totilas 90.7% dressage performance in the KUR European Championship. It literally gave me goosebumps watching it. They are amazing and Totilas is only 9 years old!