Archive for the ‘Horse Rescue’ Category

Oklahoma Tornado Killed at Least 150 horses

Posted: May 24, 2013 by R.T. Fitch in Horse Health, Horse News, Horse Rescue
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Source: By Mary Rampellini of the Daily Racing Form

“We’ve counted, unfortunately, 150 horses or more that have been found [dead], were killed, or had to be put down,”

Lost HorsesIn a sobering count, more than 150 horses died as a result of the violent tornado that swept through Moore, Okla., on Monday. The number represents the entire community of farms that sit on the southern border of Oklahoma City, including Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses who were based at Celestial Acres Training Center.

Several organizations coordinating horse-rescue efforts, as well as local veterinarians and horse owners themselves, determined the number, said Joe Lucas, executive vice president of the Thoroughbred Racing Association of Oklahoma.

“We’ve counted, unfortunately, 150 head or more that have been found [dead], were killed, or had to be put down,” Lucas said. “And that’s not just Celestial Acres. That’s the Moore area. That’s what we’ve gotten up to.”

Lucas said a hotline is being set up through the state Department of Agriculture for owners to inquire about lost horses. In addition, there are plans to post photos taken of both surviving and deceased horses for the purpose of identification. The Thoroughbred Racing Association of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing Association are helping with the process, Lucas said.

The team Lucas is working with has located 18 live horses in the Moore area, including five racehorses who were identified by their lip tattoos and sent to Remington Park in Oklahoma City on Wednesday.

“I think we’ve found everything that can be found that’s out there alive,” Lucas said.

Lucas said another 10 rescued horses were sent to facilities in Moore, and an additional three were shipped to Heritage Place, the auction house in Oklahoma City that has opened its doors to displaced horses.

“Horses that have fairly minor injuries that are treatable, they can spend the night for a few days until things get settled,” said Spence Kidney, general manager of Heritage Place. “Plus, if some are not sure where their horses are, it’s a central place to identify those horses. We’re just trying to chip in a little. It’s a terrible situation.”

Kidney said Wednesday the facilities received a miniature stallion, a paint horse, and a small gray mare who appears to be a Welsh pony.

The Oklahoma Thoroughbred Retirement Program is providing support to horses displaced by the storm, including helping owners with some of the medical costs for the treatment of injured animals. The organization, which is accepting donations through its website, http://www.otrp.info, also is seeking feed and equipment donations.

“We’re raising money to take care of the horses themselves,” said Chris Kirk, a director of the Oklahoma Thoroughbred Retirement Program.

Kirk said one of the most heartwarming stories during this difficult time was the rescue of an unraced 3-year-old Thoroughbred filly named Sasha’s Image. She was found at Celestial Acres on Tuesday evening, more than 24 hours after the storm hit. Sasha’s Image was heard whinnying from beneath some barn doors.

“From what I was told, she was laying flat on her side,” Kirk said. “Her ears were laying flat over the top of her head. They got her up, and her ears were still flat. They said the next morning her ears were pricked up again. She was in a lot of distress, but she’s doing better.”

Tornado hits Durant’s farm in Texas

Tom Durant, the all-time leading owner at Lone Star Park near Dallas, experienced significant damage to his farm in Granbury, Texas, last Wednesday due to a tornado. Durant lost nine horses in the storm, five of them yearlings from the first crop of his multiple stakes winner Sing Baby Sing.

“We took a direct hit,” said Jack Bruner, private trainer for Durant.

Bruner said there was no loss of human life at the farm, but the barns were destroyed, as were four tractors, stores of hay, and “countless miles of fence.” Bruner said he has yet to locate the farm’s six-horse trailer. He said 15 of Durant’s horses remain in the care of Equine Sports Medicine Surgery, an equine clinic in Weatherford, Texas.

“I cannot express how much they’ve done,” he said. “We could not have done it without them.”

Bruner said the majority of Durant’s mares and foals are based at Lane’s End Texas, while his racing operation is at Lone Star. The farm on Thursday was being cleared. “We’re going to rebuild,” Bruner said.

Click (HERE) to Comment at the Daily Racing Form
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Dutch Authorities Investigating Horse Meat Scandal Arrest Owner of Meat Processing Business

Posted: May 24, 2013 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Rescue
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Source: Multiple

“EVERYTHING about Horse Slaughter is either corrupt or illegal!”

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch authorities on Thursday arrested the director of a meat-processing and wholesale company whose business is at the center of an investigation into undeclared mixing of horse meat with beef.

Investigators from the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority arrested the man on suspicion of fraud and detained him for further questioning. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of six year’s imprisonment, according to prosecutors.

His identity was not released, in line with Dutch privacy laws, but local media identified him as Willy Selten, whose company is at the heart of a huge recall of beef that had possibly been mixed with horse meat. An interim director of the company was arrested on Tuesday and an administrative employee also is suspected of fraud, but has not been detained, prosecutors said.

The company involved also was not identified, but is based in the province of North Brabant, which is home to Selten’s meat works.

The company allegedly bought 300 tons of horse meat from the Netherlands, Britain and Ireland from 2011-2012 and sold it on as beef, prosecutors said in a statement.

Investigators who pored over the company’s books were unable to establish where exactly all the meat came from or where it went.

Selten has, in the past, denied having sold horse meat as beef. He was in police custody Thursday and unavailable for comment.

His business has collapsed since it was linked to the horse-meat scandal, which broke in mid-January, when Ireland’s food safety watchdog announced that it had discovered traces of horse DNA in burger products sold by major British and Irish supermarkets. The mislabeled products came from Irish processor Silvercrest Foods, which withdrew 10 million burgers from store shelves.

Irish officials first blamed an imported powdered beef-protein additive used to pad out cheap burgers, then frozen blocks of slaughterhouse leftovers imported from Poland — as a complex web of meat transactions across Europe was revealed to an alarmed European public.

Subsequently, traces of horse meat turned up across Europe in frozen supermarket meals such as burgers and lasagna, as well as in in fresh beef pasta sauce, on restaurant menus, in school lunches and in hospital meals.

Millions of products were pulled from store shelves in Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and supermarkets and food suppliers were told to test processed beef products for horse DNA.

Last month, the Dutch food safety authority called on 370 companies around Europe and 132 more in the Netherlands to recall 50,000 tons of meat they bought from Willy Selten. A week later, his business was declared bankrupt.

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Oklahoma Tornado: 34 horses Found Alive at Celestial Acres Training Center

Posted: May 23, 2013 by R.T. Fitch in Horse Health, Horse News, Horse Rescue
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Source: By Mary Rampellini of The Daily Racing Form

“People are giving horses water from plastic water bottles,”

Survivors of the CarnageA representative of the Celestial Acres Training Center in Moore, Okla., said 34 horses had been found alive as of Wednesday following Monday’s tornado, which packed winds of nearly 200 miles an hour.

The number of racehorses lost in the storm has been difficult to assess. Several trainers familiar with Celestial Acres estimate at least 80 horses were based there at the time of the storm. Tony Vann, a spokesperson for Glenn Orr and his son Tom, who own the facilities, said he is unable to give a “finite number” of horses stabled at the training center in part because those renting stalls were able to “come and go” as business dictated. As for the racehorse death toll, Vann said there is no accurate number that can be reported.

“There’s no way to quantify it at this point,” he said Wednesday. “Compounding things is that there are two other horse farms in that area and you can’t identify [the origin of some horses]. There’s a lot of things going on.”

A handful of racehorses were rescued from the rubble of the training center and were sent to Remington Park in Oklahoma City on Wednesday. Also, Heritage Place, the nearby sales complex, has agreed to receive any other rescued horses and hold them until their owners can be found, said Joe Lucas, executive vice president of the Thoroughbred Racing Association of Oklahoma.

Lucas said five racehorses, identified by their lip tattoos and with proper paperwork in place, were shipped to Remington, which is in the midst of a meet for Quarter Horses.

“The racehorses that we could identify all had papers on file at Remington,” Lucas said.

Lucas, who is helping coordinate horse-relief efforts, on Wednesday was working on importing a water truck to Moore. He said some water sources were contaminated, and others were shut off due to the storm.

“People are giving horses water from plastic water bottles,” he said. “Dehydration is a problem. Vets are in the field giving electrolytes.”

Lucas said the field efforts are being spearheaded by Danielle Barber, executive director of the Thoroughbred Racing Association of Oklahoma, and Debbie Schauf, executive director of the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing Association. Earlier this week, the organizations jointly established a charitable account to assist horsemen impacted by the tornado. All donations received will go directly to horsemen, according to a statement distributed late Tuesday.

“There are many horsemen who have been affected by this tragedy and have lost everything they own,” the statement said. “Both horsemen’s organizations, along with Remington Park in Oklahoma City, are working together in coordinating relief to horsemen that have been affected by the storm.”

Remington will race on Friday for the first time since the storm hit. A moment of silence in honor of the lives lost and the lives shattered due to the tornado will be observed prior to the start of the card, said Dale Day, a spokesperson for Remington.

The track, in addition to receiving horses, has also “adopted” 30 families impacted by the storm and is helping to meet some of their needs, said Day. Further, the employees of Remington on Tuesday sent four shipments of food prepared ontrack to the first responders command center in Moore. Remington on Friday will be hosting a blood drive from noon to 5 p.m., said Day. It is being held in conjunction with the Oklahoma Blood Institute.

The outpouring of support for the residents of Moore, as well as the displaced horses, has been outstanding, said both Day and Lucas.

“There was an anonymous person who gave $10,000 for feed and management [of the horses],” said Lucas.

Celestial Acres had four barns and a total of several hundred stalls, said Vann. Only one of those barns, on the north side of the five-furlong training track, was left standing after the storm. The 20 to 25 horses inside that barn all survived, according to Mark Lee, a trainer who lost the 12 horses he had stabled at Celestial Acres. The facilities also included several paddocks and an 85- by 200-foot arena.

“It’s just gone,” Vann said of the arena. “It’s just earth.”…(CONTINUED)

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NY State Politicans Propose Anti-Horse Slaughter Bill in Albany

Posted: May 23, 2013 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Rescue
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Source: By ANDREW CHAMPAGNE of the Saratogian

“Reason, logic, and fact dictate that we should ban horse slaughter in New York state.”

ALBANY — Fewer stories in horse racing have had higher highs and lower lows than that of Ferdinand.

The 1986 Kentucky Derby winner banked more than $3.7 million in a stellar career and went to the breeding shed in 1988. However, the champion thoroughbred was slaughtered in Japan in 2002, setting off outrage in the horse racing community.

That story was repeated Wednesday by Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, one of several state politicians who spoke out in support of a bill that would criminalize the transport of horses for slaughter in the Empire State.

“It is a shame and a tragedy,” Tedisco said, “and we as a state should be ashamed for allowing that to happen.”

The bill is sponsored by Rep. Deborah Glick and Sen. Kathy Marchione, among others, and the press conference was held in the well of the Legislative Office Building. The proposed legislation has support from both sides of the aisle, but may not be voted on in this current legislative session.

According to guest speaker Jack Knowlton, a Saratoga native who co-owned 2003 Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide, Ferdinand’s plight sparked similar legislation on the national level several years ago. However, that bill, H.R. 503, did not make it out of committee in the U.S. Senate.

“We’re a very diverse country,” Knowlton said. “There are a lot of interests in horse slaughter, particularly in the western part of the country, and that legislation still has not happened on a national level.”

Marchione spoke for several minutes, and she and Tedisco both said the proposed bill makes sense on many different levels.

“In 2010, 137,934 horses were escorted to Canada to be slaughtered,” Marchione said. “The vast majority were intended for human consumption, and horses at the slaughterhouses are treated with cruel indifference.”

“This should be based on reason, logic, and fact,” Tedisco said. “Reason, logic, and fact dictate that we should ban horse slaughter in New York state.”

The press conference also featured presentations by veterinarian Dr. Kraig Kulikowski and Summer Brennan of Little Brook Farm in Old Chatham.

“Horse slaughter is horse abuse,” Kulikowski said. “We need to start calling it what it is. As a veterinarian, I know what humane euthanasia looks like, and it doesn’t look like slaughter.”

“I’ve spent my entire life working with these horses that were discarded for various reasons,” Brennan said. “What I’ve found doing this is that there’s rarely anything wrong with the horse. It’s mainly the people that own them.”

All who spoke Wednesday agreed that public support of the bill is crucial…(CONTINUED)

Please click (HERE) to read the story in its entirety AND to Comment at the Saratogian

Assemblyman Tedsico speaking at 2013 Equine Conference last month

Dr. Kraig Kulikowski speaking at the 2013 American Equine Conference last month

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In Texas Blast, Horseman Died Trying to Save Creatures He Loved

Posted: May 20, 2013 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Rescue
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Source: By of the New York Times

“He’d do anything for anybody,”

Behind a photograph of Buck Uptmor, President Obama spoke April 25th at a service for victims of an explosion in West, Tex. – photo by Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

WEST, Tex. — The emergency responders who rushed to the fire at a fertilizer plant here in the minutes before a deadly explosion gave their lives trying to protect the town’s people and property. Buck Uptmor gave his for its horses.

As people around West realized that flames had broken out at the plant that night, Mr. Uptmor — a short, feisty man who spent nearly all his 45 years riding, racing and tending to horses — drove to a field to rescue some horses near the plant, friends said.

He and 11 other men died that night while serving officially or unofficially as volunteer firefighters and emergency responders. They were an unpretentious lot, not unlike the town they died saving. They were deer hunters and Nascar fans, practical jokers and backyard BB gun marksmen. They tinkered with their cars — Kevin W. Sanders, 33, had a Superman logo painted on his — and they went by their nicknames so often for so many years that their real names faded, as happened to Mr. Uptmor.

They were goateed, mustachioed McLennan County country boys, with wives and ex-wives, children and stepchildren, grown sons and newborn babies.

Cody Dragoo, 50, used to leave notes reading “I miss you” before he went out of town, so his wife, Patty, would see them when she came home. Douglas Snokhous, also 50, worked at the Central Texas Iron Works, but he was often at Donna’s House of Flowers downtown, helping the owner, his wife of 13 years.

Mr. Uptmor’s full name was William R. Uptmor Jr. Few called him William or Billy or Bill. He was Buck. And as those close to him prepared to gather at St. Mary’s Catholic Church of the Assumption in West for his funeral on Saturday, Mr. Uptmor was given a new distinction: honorary firefighter. He was recognized as such by President Obama and other officials at a memorial service on Thursday for the 12 responders.

It was unclear where his remains were found after the explosion killed him, or what became of the horses.

At least two other people died in the blast on April 17, which left a crater 93 feet wide and 10 feet deep in one of the worst industrial disasters in Texas.

Buck Uptmor was a son, a brother, a husband and a father of three. He was also a youth baseball coach, a racehorse jockey, a bull-riding and bareback-bronco-riding rodeo cowboy, and the former drummer of the family country band Billy Uptmor and the Makers. Years ago, he found an abandoned coyote pup and raised it as a pet before it wandered away…(CONTINUED)

Click (HERE) to visit the NYT and to read the article in its entirety
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Videos Released of 2013 American Equine Summit

Posted: May 3, 2013 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Rescue, Horse Slaughter, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
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Update from Equine Advocates

Equine Advocates

April 27, 2013

Video #1: Opening remarks from Jeffrey Tucker, EA Board Member, followed by welcome remarks from Susan Wagner, and speeches from the Summit’s Keynote Speaker, NY Assemblyman Jim Tedisco (sponsor of legislation A.3905) and NYS Senator Kathy Marchione (sponsor of legislation S.4615).

Video #2:   Victoria McCullough and Florida State Senator Joseph Abruzzo.  Ms. McCullough & Senator Abruzzo’s talk is titled “Making the Vital Changes Needed for America’s Horses Starting at the Top.”

Video #3:  Patricia Hogan, VMD, ACVS of Hogan Equine.  Dr. Hogan’s talk is titled “Racing and Horse Slaughter – A Toxic Relationship.”

Video #4:  John Holland, President of the Equine Wefare Alliance.  Mr. Holland’s talk is titled “Understanding the Forces Behind Horse Slaughter.”

Video #5:  Ann M. Marini, Ph.D., M.D.  Dr. Marini’s talk is titled “Phenylbutazone and Human Health.”

Video #6:  Jo Anne Normile, author of Saving Baby, Founder of CANTER.  Ms. Normile’s talk is titled “Making Sure the Finish Line Isn’t the Slaughterhouse:  Racing’s Obligation to Ensure the Humane Fate of its Horses.”

Video #7:  Sue McDonough, Cruelty Consultant for the New York State Humane Association.  Ms. McDonough’s talk is titled “Moving Animal Cruelty Crimes to the Penal Law Section of the Criminal Code.”

April 28, 2013

Video #8:  Paula Bacon, former Mayor of Kaufman, Texas who shut down Dallas Crown, the last equine slaughterhouse in the nation.  Ms. Bacon’s talk is titled “What Happens when Horse Slaughter Comes to Town.”

Video #9:  Vickery Eckhoff, writer for FORBES and other publications.  Ms. Eckhoff’s talk is titled “Cheval My A** – Breaking Through Horse Slaughter B.S. with Journalists, Lawmakers and the Public.”

Video #10:  Stephanie Graham, Domestic & Wild Horse Advocate.  Ms. Graham’s talk is titled “Update from Oklahoma.”

Video #11:  Ginger Kathrens, Executive Director of The Cloud Foundation.  Ms. Kathrens talk is titled “Wild Horses:  On the Trail to Freedom!”

Video #12:  R.T. Fitch, Wild Horse Advocate and Author of the Book & Bog “Straight From the Horses Heart.”  Mr. Fitch’s talk is titled “Outer Mongolia, Wild Horses and the Paradox of Horse Slaughter.”

Video #13:  US Congressman Chris Gibson of New York’s 19th District discusses H.R. 1094, the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act.

Video #14:  Kraig Kulikowski, DVM, P.A.. of Equine Sports Medicine.  Dr. Kulikowski’s talk is titled “Ethics and the Modern Veterinarian.”

Bio:    Billy Smith, Teacher & Natural Horseman of Billy Smih Horsemanship.  Mr. Smith did a lecture demonstration with former PMU Mare, Kelli in our outdoor round pen. Due to poor audio, the video is not being posted.

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Dutch Company Linked to Horse Meat Fraud Bankrupt

Posted: April 16, 2013 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Rescue
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Source: The Jakarta Post

“court declared the Willy Selten meat works bankrupt Tuesday”

cuts-of-beef-horse.jpg.492x0_q85_crop-smartA meat processing plant and wholesaler suspected of mixing undeclared horse meat with beef has been declared bankrupt.

A court in the eastern Dutch city of Den Bosch court declared the Willy Selten meat works bankrupt Tuesday. The company is at the center of a huge recall announced last week of suspect beef across the European Union.

A Dutch labor union requested the bankruptcy on behalf of workers who had not been paid since February and can only claim unemployment benefits once their employer has been declared bankrupt.

Last week, the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority called on 370 companies around Europe and 132 more in the Netherlands to recall 50,000 tons of meat they bought from Willy Selten.

Click (HERE) to visit the Post and to comment
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