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Local People, Groups Trying to Save Horses

Posted on: Friday, 9 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

Sep. 8--One of the awful rumors on Tuesday -- among all the awful truths -- was that the New Orleans Mounted Police horses had drowned, holed up in stables and stashed just six blocks from the beleaguered leaking lake.

By yesterday, communication was still hard to come by. But officers of the Lexington Mounted Police, worried about their friends on the New Orleans force, got through. Eight of the 14 mounted officers had lost everything they owned, but they were safe, said Lexington police sergeant Jay Postalwaite. And so were their horses.

Moved sometime last week and now comfortably resting at fairgrounds in Washington Parish, the quarter horses, draft-crosses and Appaloosa crosses that make up the mounted unit were busy munching hay and lying down on fresh bedding sent courtesy of the mounted police unit out of Indianapolis.

Next week, Lexington's mounted unit is planning "to load up a U-Haul" and replenish the hay and the bedding, and do whatever is needed.

"What we want to do is say, 'We'll take care of your horses, now you go take care of your lives,' even if just for a little while," Postalwaite said.

A week after the first serious effort to save the region's people comes a serious effort to save its animals. In Lexington, organizations and individuals are offering to extricate, feed, fix and maintain hurricane-ravaged horses.

The Lexington-based U.S. Equestrian Federation as early as last week began compiling an online list with people volunteering shelters, trailers and other resources. The call brought more than 5,000 responses.

Two tractor-trailers filled with animal medication, sedatives, disinfectants, dressings, fly spray and feed from Lexington have already left for Louisiana.

Remi Bellocq, CEO of the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, said that over the weekend, Olympic equestrian Karen O'Connor came into his office at the Kentucky Horse Park. "She said, 'What are we going to do?'"

The answer: Send more.

Bellocq said that he's been on the phone with HBPA representatives in Louisiana, where some horse farms have been hit hard. Bellocq said he's hearing that "it's a lot worse than we could ever imagine. For some folks in farms north of New Orleans, it wasn't even a question of saving them. Their farms are just gone, their horses are just gone."

Tom Early, who runs Brehon Farm in Folsom, north of New Orleans, said that he had about a hundred trees down and lost half of a barn, but his 40 horses were safe. "We took a pretty good hit. We haven't had electricity since Sunday afternoon," Early said. He's been cooling his horses with fans run with a generator. He knew of only one horse lost in his area -- a weanling struck on the neck by tin from a roof.

Rose Westover, spokeswoman for Lone Star Equine Rescue in Houston, said her group's first equine rescue team hit the ground in New Orleans and parts east yesterday. She had no report of how many horses are hurt or missing or just need to be checked up on, "but it's a lot." The equine population of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is estimated at more than 230,000.

The found and rescued horses are being sent to Gonzales, La., for triage staging with volunteer vets. Then, like the evacuees who left them, they are being shipped to temporary facilities.

A team of veterinarians from Hagyard, Davidson and McGee in Lexington stands ready to go to administer aid to horses that have, according to one Louisiana vet, "every imaginable kind of injury, and need any care you can send."

Allan Schwartz, who is leading much of the United States Humane Society's equine rescue effort, said help needs to be organized before it gets there, since it's not going to do any good to have hay where there are no horses.

He said he's been in Mississippi and "there are dead animals everywhere." He said he knows of at least 13 carriage horses left in the French Quarter in New Orleans, but "I'm not going to go get them. I can't endanger myself or the people on my team. People are dying down there from being in the water. We will do what we can, but we are not out to worsen the tragedy."

Ashley Stokes, a faculty member at the veterinarian school at Louisiana State University, said the equine rescue folks are trying to stay out of the way of emergency workers who are rescuing people.

But in some cases, she said, if you save one, you save the other. "People will call and tell us about a caretaker that wouldn't leave their property. The priority is still people. We're fully respectful, but we can help each other. I don't think we're in the way."

One of the fears being voiced is that large animals last only so long without fresh water.

At the Ike Hamilton Expo Center in Monroe, La., 20 rescued horses live in an area that has been cleaned and cleared for 510. The center's director says there is so much hay that she is sure she can manage until Christmas.

"Maybe more horses are coming," she said. "It's early yet, what with people still being rescued and all."

Work in Lexington continues as if there will be many horses to take care of. WinStar Farms co-owner Bill Casner has pledged to match up to $1 million in donations that will be collected by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and the Thoroughbred Charities of America during the opening day of Keeneland's September Yearling Sale, on Monday.

The famous horse farms of the Bluegrass probably will not take in sick horses, said John Sikura, owner of Hill 'n' Dale Farm. "We have the goodwill to do it, but there is the potential for disease with having them mix with other horses."

But that doesn't mean any of those who own 10 acres or an unused stall in Central Kentucky can't -- provided they have a permit and follow quarantine procedures set forth yesterday by Kentucky State Veterinarian Robert Stout.

The Humane Society's Schwartz said he figures that some of the Gulf Coast horses will be shipped to small Lexington farms. "They're sending people to you, right? You'll get some horses. Take care of them, won't you?"

By Amy Wilson and Janet Patton

Herald-Leader staff writers Raviya Ismail and Alicia Wincze contributed to this report.

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Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.)

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