A Different Sort of Rescue Story - The Second Rescue

Part 1

Just taking the horses away from Rose Corey and telling her it was no longer any of her business was not enough to dissuade the woman from getting to the bottom of what was going on. It didn't take Rose long to find out that although Hope for Horses was supposed to be a 501 (c)(3) charitable organization , they were not actually in compliance with those guidelines for the state of Washington. (This situation has since been corrected.)

As for Hope for Horse's motivation wanting to have all of the horses in their care, the organization was getting $4500 a month from the country for the care of these horses. Yet as you saw on the news clip they were soliciting funds from the public to care for these horses as well using the hard luck story to tug at people's heart strings. There's no indication what so ever in those stories that Hope for Horses is being reimbursed by the county, only the impression they are relying on the sympathy of the public for donations to care for abused horses. I wonder if the reporters had any kind of clue that the agency was being paid by the county.

Just for the record with my nearly 30 horses do you know what I could do with a budget of $4500 a month. And most of my horses are growing youngsters and pregnant mares that require more groceries. The rescue horses I've seen haven't required any more feed than some of the horses I feed here. Heck, even with the traumatic impact of the birth of my Arabian horse twins, I would have been in good shape. You're not going to tell me that those 15 horses impounded (with the one's needing the medical care being Valor and Teddy) that's not an adequate amount of funds.

So my question is what's with that? Is that how these things work? Do other rescues get paid to do what they do? Or is this person someone who's figured out how to work the system? What do you think?

Once the horses were taken, Rose wasn't just trying to figure out what was going on with Hope for Horses. She was also working to find out "who" this Arabian stallion really was. I'm not sure how she ever managed this but she did. I do remember her referencing his markings but she would have had to do a lot of searching to get the field narrowed down for markings to be useful but Rose managed to find the horse's registered name.

Once she knew what his registered name was, then she had pertinent information like the stallion's breeder and who had owned the horse in the past. She located the last recorded owner and found the horse had been sold on a contract to the people who had neglected him. That contract had never been paid off and there was a clause for repossession. The necessary persons were served with a notice of repossession.

That meant the person holding the contract was still the legal owner of this horse.
Despite the condition of the stallion, to save Valor, Rose paid the owner what she asked. Then that owner signed over the horse's registration and a written bill of sale. Valor now belonged to Rose even in the eyes of The (Arabian Horse) Registry.

Again by Bruce Smith in the Eatonville Dispatch Stymied by County, Graham good samaritan purchases abused horse It was clear the county wasn't really interested in what was right, only about being in control.

This took place in February but even then it took a lawyer and court hearings, not to mention more time, before the county returned the stallion to Rose. Still claiming they needed to "preserve their prosecutory evidence" it wasn't until April 2 that Valor was returned to Rose and Creekwood Farm. Although the Appy/QH foal known as Teddy was not released, Rose was given the right of "first refusal" for that horse as well. All of this was accomplished in an out of court settlement.








Now, if you ask me, a glaring issue with Hope for Horses comes up here. Valor had been in their care for around 2 and a half months. With the huge improvement the horse had made during his approximately 20 days with Rose, you would think with 2 and a half months of good care Valor would have been looking pretty darn good. However, that is not the case.

Bruce Smith wrote his fourth article in his series for the Eatonville Dispatch, Equine good Samaritan reunited with her horse It tells about the condition the horse was in when he arrived back at Creekwood Farm.

The horse looked worse than when he had left Creekwood in the first place. You can see the difference by the above 3 pictures that were taken when the horse arrived back at Creekwood Farm. Compare those with the one at the very top. It was taken at Hope for Horses when they did his intake after taking him from Rose. It's from the country records. While the picture quality isn't great, it's still obvious the horse was carrying more weight then than he was 6 weeks later.

There was a problem with the trailer ride too. The horse wolfed down a handful of food that had been in the trailer. From that the horse choked. The horse got off the trailer convulsing from the choke.

There's been a lot of accusations about this incident with the horse choking. Fingers pointed from Hope for Horses have blamed it on Rose saying she gave him the food so she caused the problem.

For me, I think putting the focus on the choking incident is a diversion to get away from the real issue, the condition of the horse. And the condition of the horse certainly plays a big role in the horse choking in the trailer in the first place would be my guess. If the horse didn't feel like he was starving for food he never would have gobbled food down in such a manner as to cause this type of choke in the first place. (This conclusion would be based on the fact the horse did not wolf his food down when he was first rescued. Despite his terrible condition, he ate his food at a normal rate.)

I think if a horse is so hungry that it can't have any food in front of it to travel because it will wolf it down and run the risk of choke, there is really something wrong. I transport my horses all the time with food in front of them. It's even recommended by some experts to help alleviate stress on trailer rides. So why should it be an issue as the Hope for Horses people implied against Rose?

In my book that would go onto the people who had been responsible for the care and feeding of that horse. They would be the ones responsible for the horse being that hungry. In this case that would be Hope for Horses. Wouldn't you say?

But again, let's not get lost in who caused the choke. The real question is why was the horse returned from a rescue in worse shape than when he was taken from the Good Samaritans? And why would an agency that took care of a rescue horse in such a manner still be considered for further work for the county?

This story isn't over yet..........

To be continued......................

Thoughts

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