Horses, Horse Racing, Horse Lovers and Taking Responsibility

Marquet Gold aka Buster, safe at foster facility.

There's a lot of griping going on about the horse slaughter ban. Y'all know, or should by now, my feelings on that subject. A lot of the griping centers around people who can't afford to have their horses euthanized, can't sell them, can't afford to keep them, having to turn them loose in the countryside because of all of the above.


I've recently come across the Alex Brown Racing website which hosts discussion groups. There is a section in the discussion boards dedicated to the rescue of horses from auction houses that sell to kill buyers. I've learned a lot from that forum. These are not PETA people. These are not "uneducated" people who have somehow been brainwashed by PETA. These are HORSE people. These are horse owners, horse breeders, horse trainers who band together in a giant cyber army of responsible humans to rescue horses. It's one of many such groups.


How did I find out about this forum? I plugged the name of a horse I know into Google. The horse belonged to a friend of mine that breeds, trains and races thoroughbreds. I've known Buster (aka Marquet Gold) since he was a baby. Sandy kept us updated on his progress through training, his first race, all subsequent races, all his personality quirks, and I feel like I know "Buster the Butt" almost as well as I do my own minis. When Sandy let me know this weekend that Buster had narrowly escaped being sold for slaughter in Ohio when his trainer, Randy Joe Faulkner, dumped him at the Sugarcreek auction. I was horrified. Sandy had sold this horse on condition that she be contacted to buy him back if the horse ever left racing. She was NOT contacted.


Buster is one horse among thousands with responsible breeders ready and willing to buy them back rather than see them end up in a meat wagon. Yet, there they all go. Why??! In the words of one of the members of this discussion group "there are no UNWANTED horses, we just simply live in a quick disposal society."


Certainly, there are times when hard times hit fast and out of the blue. Just like rescue groups such as this one grew out of need, I feel that other groups will form to help owners facing sudden financial crises. As people who enjoy or make a living off of horses, it is our responsibility to provide a decent life and humane care for these animals. Knowing that there may be people out there that suddenly find themselves in sudden dire financial straights it should be a shared responsibility to help them do the right thing by their horses in a crisis. Rather than saying "They can't afford it! The ban hurts them! They'll have to turn their horses loose!", it's time for responsible owners and caring veterinarians to stand up and say "Together we CAN help afford these animals either a humane passing or find them a new home." It can be done. It has been done. It is being done even as I type this blog post.


Here is a link to the discussion group. Please read as this exciting story grows with each individual post and shows what this group of responsible owners and trainers went through in order to save 8 thoroughbreds in the kill pen at the Sugarcreek Auction. Then ask yourself if it "can't" be done or if people just aren't willing to put forth the effort and time do what's right. (The "FOB" refered to in this forum is the group "Friends of Barbaro".)


http://forums.delphiforums.com/alexbrown/messages/?start=Start+Reading+%3E%3E


Here is Buster's story, written by my friend Sandy:


He had scratches and bite marks all over him, he was hungry and only had one shoe left but Buster was one lucky horse.

He was alive.

He had raced on Monday, and here it was, Thursday, and he was at the auction barn in the kill pen with a bunch of other Thoroughbreds who had just been dumped. Horses were already being sent through the auction ring and dedicated rescuers were frantically making calls and emailing people trying to raise enough money to save a few of them. Twenty dollars came in from a PayPal account here, a hundred there, fifteen or twenty dollars from somebody across the country. Friends of Barbaro and Canter and volunteers were scrambling for every penny. Some of the volunteers were in the pen, trying to look at lip tattoos to help identify some of them. Many of the horses would shy away from the humans, but Buster walked right up. Maybe one of these guys had a snack, he probably thought. He was chosen as one of the lucky ones to be saved that day. His identity came back; his name was Marquet Gold, known from birth as Buster. My partner and I were there when he was born.


Thursday night about 9:00pm I was checking Email when a message popped up from a nearby friend. She wanted to know if I had seen the post on Backyard Racehorse forum. Buster had been pulled out of a kill pen in Ohio. My partner and I started making frantic phone calls, googled rescue groups in Ohio, called the phone number listed on a website. An online friend in Florida alerted her parents in Ohio, and they were ready to go bail him out, or do whatever needed to be done. Another online friend in VA was ready to help get him transported to the barn where she boards her hunter until we could make arrangements. A friend in the Pacific Northwest contacted people she knew in rescue to help track him. We were frantic. This was one of our babies.


We had a couple of good mares, and might have one or two foals a year. One might sell as a yearling, or we’d send one for training. Not happy with the results, I was ready to semi-retire and decided to try my hand at training my own. I figured I could not win races cheaper than the other guys weren’t winning, and this way I got to keep my horses sound. It worked, I had some wins with my babies, and when they retired they were found new careers. People liked my retirees because they had been raced with no drugs except an occasional dose of Lasix, which seems to help in the South heat and humidity. Never did my horses get steroids or other "performance enhancers". Buster was no exception. He was started under saddle in a big pasture full of billy goats and whatever other livestock wandered onto our place. The rider did figure eights on Buster while I kept the world’s nastiest billy goat at bay with a squirt gun full of water. By the time Buster got to the track, not much spooked him.


Buster was a stone frontrunner. Try to rate him, and he’d get sulky and spit the bit. It was wire to wire or nothing for him. He was big and stout and tough, but when the Sam Houston meet ended in April ‘07, I didn’t think he’d be competitive where I was headed next, to Dallas and Lone Star Park, so the plan was to turn him out. Another trainer who had come down to Houston for the meet was going back East, and thought Buster would run well there. He wanted to buy him.


After waffling, I decided to sell him, the first active runner I had ever sold who could run as a racehorse for someone else. I pinned my card to the foal papers, with a note on the back stating there was a forever home, if needed. The trainer agreed to let me know if he ever decided to get rid of Buster so I could buy him back.


Of course I had followed him in the charts and with Stable Alert, and was pleased to see he was back running. Buster never had a sore spot in his life but injured a fetlock in the first race for that trainer, still while at Houston. Then, I noted that he had not finished in the money in his last race Monday, and wondered if he was sore. Then Thursday night I got that email.


Sleep didn’t happen Thursday night, and by Friday emails were starting to be answered. We finally got the one we wanted to see—"we rescued your horse!" Buster was on his way to a foster farm in Virginia. We phoned the farm there, and Sheila told us that he seemed to be sound. Relief. We had been afraid that he had injured himself in that race.

A flurry of activity followed, and today, Sunday, my friend in VA had commandeered a friend of hers who owns a trailer, and the trainer at her barn hopped in for the trip, and off they went to retrieve Buster. It turns out Buster had been delivered to a foster farm a mere 24 miles from her house.

Buster is alive only because of a bunch of unlikely and awe inspiring miracles. Miracles that interlocked and formed a safety net that caught Buster when he fell. The miracle of the group that calls themselves Friends Of Barbaro, in honor of the great racehorse who won the Kentucky Derby, then was injured in the Preakness and fought valiantly for months to recover. The rescue organization, Canter, whose people were there helping with the rescue. The miracle of friends and strangers across the country chipping in money and effort to save as many horses as they can from slaughter. The fact that someone who knew me through a forum scanned the pedigrees of the horses rescued, and saw me listed as breeder. This is the miracle of people like Gail and Sheila and Kathleen and Susan and Lyn and a hundred others holding out helping hands.

One miracle is wonderful. Buster receiving so many is almost unbelievable.

I wonder how many breeders or past owners would like to help these horses if they knew there was a crisis situation. The only answer is some sort of early identification so they could be located quickly. Can the formation of a national volunteer registry of breeders or caring owners help? Info on a microchip that auctions would be required to scan, and show proof of trying to contact the breeder or owner? Requiring a holding period of time before a registered horse could be sold to allow time to make the contacts? How about an additional fee for all horses, like a licensing fee, to help with the horse’s eventual retirement? Say, a thousand dollars in an interest bearing trust account for that horses as foal, for TBs deposited thru the Jockey Club, for others another applicable agency. When a horse is retired or no more useful, a licensed agency gets the horse and the money to care for it. I don’t know the answers, but if the racing industry is to survive, some hard decisions must be made. Drugs need to be banned except for therapeutic use. The crisis situation for horses is increasing and rescues are being overwhelmed. Of the thousands who weren’t so lucky, I thank my lucky stars that Buster is safe now. The scratches and bites will heal, the weight will be regained.


Buster is alive. I am forever indebted.