tell these horses there isnt a problem

							                            Tell these horses,
                    “There isn’t a problem in Alberta”
                                 Critical Situation update
The horse on the hill: is this a majestic wild stallion overlooking his herd? Or the family
horse over looking his home, no I’m sorry to say “not”. This is just one of the 23,000
horses awaiting slaughter in meat pens all over Alberta. He is standing high on a manure
pile during pen cleaning, watching and waiting, as his time is limited.

23,000 horses! How do we know this for fact? The head buyer from the plant told us,
and one thing I can tell you, when he says he has 23,000 horses in his pens - he has
23,000 horses. Are all these horses going to slaughter the result of the drought? No, many
would have ended at the plant anyway. What gets horses killed more than anything else is
a lack of horse knowledge, indiscriminate breeding, and just “plain old stupidity” - not on
the part of the horse, but their owners. The drought has added to the problem severely,
however the ignorance shown by the Horse Industry branch, as well as the Alberta
Equestrian Federation has added to the confusion of what is really happening. Why it is
these groups refuse to accept that there is a problem is anybody’s guess. I guess they just
fall into the “plain old stupidity” class (my personal opinion anyway). You really can’t
blame them; the people and the horses that they deal with are the high-end type, money to
burn and the high cost of hay wouldn’t bother them or their horses so they ask, “what
problem?”

Maybe they should go to the sales like we have, or go to the meat pens to take a look -
like we have. And I mean more than one.

There is an old saying, “it only takes two people to have an auction”and that’s the way it
has been at the sales I’ve attended.

Prices have been all over the place. We have purchased full grown horses for as little as
$175 and foals for as little as $30, NOT broke to death, Registered to the nines type of
horse - just a horse who has as much right to live as anybody else’s horses do. Some were
very well trained, some not. People still can’t seem to get though their thick heads, you
can’t ride a set of papers, and the price paid doesn’t matter a hoot to the horse. Training is
everything; the price paid is only the start.

Anyway, before I get all bent out of shape over that, lets get back to the sales. Like I said
prices have been all over the place. At some sales the prices have been high, others didn’t
pay for the price of fuel to get the horse there. I have seen with my own eyes, thin, under
weight, should not be at a sale, type of horses coming into the sale ring - a few of them
ended up here. We have seen people from as far away as Quebec buying up Alberta
horses and shipping them east, and we have seen people from Vancouver Island do it as
well, shipping them west. Some were good people just trying to help, some were bottom
feeders just making a buck; we have seen both.

Will we see the situation get better or worse? That is the question. If the price of hay
doesn’t drop soon it’s going to get worse. There is “price-gouging” going on, no doubt
about it. There is always going to be somebody trying to make a buck off of the
misfortunes of others. That seems to be common in today’s society, the “kick’em when
there down” sort of attitude, or I believe they call it a free market system. And there are
the other people who do care and are trying to do their best to help out. We have been
flooded with emails and phone calls from one end of this country to the next. Offering
every thing from foster homes, to feed, to money. We are still behind in returning calls
and emails not by days, but by weeks.

So I guess I can’t tell you where this situation is going to end, all I can tell you is what we
have done.

Since the first article went up on the website, (July 28) we have received over $17,000 in
donations (till the 4th of September). We also received 22 tons of alpha–timothy feed
cubes from Ontario. The feed cubes we gave away to people whose horses were on our
emergency feed list (over 1,000 head). We also have purchased back from slaughter over
$21,000 worth of horses. Vet cost for the month ran $3,900. We also purchased 1,100
bales of hay at a cost of $7400. Our pens at the Centre swelled in numbers from 34 to 91
head of horses; we also placed 22 horses in private homes and sent another 25 horses to
Ontario for placement. As of today, October 1st, we are back up to 62 head of horses,
with another 30 or more waiting to come in. Of the horses here 28 are just babies or
weanlings. We are trying to get their pictures on the website as fast as we can. I’m telling
you all this so you know we are not sitting on our butts doing nothing. We are trying to
do our best to make a different in the lives of the horses we have rescued, sometimes the
situation almost seems useless, it like bringing a knife to a gun fight, but we will carry on.
Thanks and God Bless to all of you who have sent donations and have taken our horses
for placement. You are making a difference - some day maybe the light at the end of the
tunnel won’t be another train.