“Those horses are my livelihood and I consider them part of my family,”
GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. – From 800 miles away, the images of Mother Nature’s wrath in Oklahoma are breathtaking. From a few blocks, they’re something else entirely.
“It’s tough. It’s tough to grasp,” said Minnesota native Randy Weidner, who lost nearly everything in Moore tornado.
Weidner, 38, grew up in Rosemount, but travels across the country as a race horse trainer with his girlfriend, Lindsey White.
Since February, he’s lived at the Celestial Acres Training Center in Moore, Okla. He was set to head back to Minnesota on Wednesday morning to race his horses at Canterbury Park.
That all changed when the twister hit. With his voice sounding tired, he described the moments before the devastation.
“The winds were going crazy. And that’s when we tried to get the horses out, but the storm chasers that were there were loading their equipment back in their truck and said you guys got to get out of here right now,” he told KARE 11 by phone.
They were forced to leave their 12 horses behind. Looking to seek shelter they were on their way to the Moore Hospital when they decided to go to a friend’s house instead.
“The Moore hospital that we were going to go to took a direct hit from the tornado. I guess it’s a blessing that we continued on the road to our friend’s house,” he said.
Their horses were not as lucky. When Weidner returned to the stables, he found all of them dead, along with nearly 100 more lying in the field.
“Those horses are my livelihood and I consider them part of my family,” he said as his voice wavered.
His trailer, his truck and all of his personal belongings are gone too. He estimates about $260,000 is lost. All that’s left is a slab of concrete where he once laid his head at night.
And while he worries about paying the bills with his horses gone, he knows he hasn’t even suffered the worst of it.
“My heart just breaks for these families that lost love ones,” he said.
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Categories: Horse News
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Seriously you people should not be so quick to judge!!! I am a horse owner and have lived in Oklahoma all of my life. If you are not from here you have no business trashing this man for his actions. I know we had plenty of two day warning that it was coming but unlike a hurricane they can not pinpoint the exact location this thing is going to drop out of the sky and destroy your entire life. He did all that he could to protect his animals and there is not a way to move 100 horses in less than an hour get them out of the path of this storm. There was not way to tell where it was going to affect until it dropped!!! Once it did it was only 20 miles or so if that from where these were housed. I don’t know about any of you guys but im no super person that could move them that fast out of the tornado path. So please everyone lets rally around this man in his time of need and be the great Ameriacans and Oklahomans that we should be. God Bless all of you even if you can’t be nice.
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