I don’t know what I’ll find. A lot of the horses do sell, but to not so great a clientele. The broker sites say anything is better than slaughter, but I’ve seen things that are much worse. I’m not going to help someone who is bad.” Based in Agua Dulce, California, Megan’s nonprofit orga-
nization, Auction Horses Rescue (AHR), focuses on prospects in need of retraining and hard luck cases, including older broodmares and stallions discarded from the Thoroughbred and Warmblood breeding industries. “We intercept them at auctions and feedlots before they are lost to slaughter. The majority of kill buyers are horse traders as well. They buy a lot of horses, see who they can sell as riding horses or to the rescue market for more money. Then they take that money and buy four horses to sell for slaughter.” Some of the horses go from auction to feedlots (where
animals are fed and fattened up for slaughter). Those that don’t sell are “shipped,” as they say, to slaughter in Mexico or Canada. “I try not to do too much feedlot business,” says Megan.
“When I do, I drive a really hard bargain so they get as little money as possible to turn around and buy horses to ship. There are trainers and breeders who send horses directly to feedlots, so I do need to go there.” Like Megan, the kill buyers don’t know what they have
until they get it home. “You never know what you’re getting. A horse standing in a pen may or may not be sound, or is drugged and really dangerous, or has health issues,” she explains. “I’ve gotten really good at looking at a horse’s eye, how he stands, how he carries himself. Yet even though horses give clues, you don’t know what you’re buying.”
More Cases Hudson, named after Rock, was not a good fellow when he
was rescued. The 16.3 hand, 16-year-old Warmblood cross looked like he was correctly started a long time before and had a life as a jumper. When Megan got him to her train- er’s barn near Los Angeles, he was very sound, but they believed someone let him get away with far too much bad behavior. “He had sufficiently intimidated his handlers to end up slaughter bound. He spent a full year in retrain- ing. He then went into dressage training and now he’s awesome. Until his forever home is found, AHR plans to continue with his training. He just needed the right educa- tion,” says Megan. Another successful turnaround was when Omega Rescue
saved a pony from the kill pen who had essentially never been touched by humans. Named FMF Griffin, he went on to become the USEA Eventing Champion Pony of the Year. Kelly shares another story about a Holsteiner mare
named Rafaella who was in a show home. She was terri- bly pigeon toed and if she jumped higher than a cross rail, she would develop major hoof cracks. Her owner gave her to a friend as a trail horse. After a few years she went up for sale. The ad boasted that she used to jump four feet, not mentioning that she wasn’t sound to jump. Sold to a hunter/ jumper trainer sight unseen, she didn’t hold up and went to auction with papers.
16 November/December 2015
“Kelly tells the kill buyers to bring her the worst of the worst, so that she can make the decision to euthanize them if she must.”
Above: Trainer Laura Goodenkauf (assistant to Kristina Harrison) riding their Warmblood rescue “Hudson,” available for adoption (as of September 2015) at Auction Horses Rescue. Opposite page: A truly happy ending for Pacino, who can pack around all sizes and levels of riders.
“Word got out that this was someone’s next Grand
Prix prospect. That was the fairy tale,” Kelly continues. “A supporter paid her bail and we found her totally unsound for riding. Lots of people wanted her for breeding, but breeding is why you have all these Warmbloods at auction. It’s hard for us to find a home for light riding for such a big horse and be sure that the buyer follows our directions. I didn’t want her to ship, but I also didn’t want her ridden or bred. So we rehabilitated her and retired Rafaella, at 14, to a lovely sanctuary.”
Overwhelming Stress Kelly tells the kill buyers to bring her the worst of the worst,
so that she can make the decision to euthanize them if she must. These difficult decisions have their toll. “I need to take
breaks,” says Kelly, who used to show Paints and Quarter Horses. “I’ve seen so much during my life of doing this that I have PTSD. It’s unimaginable. I’ve seen them have heart attacks and drop dead from the stress. A person who has never seen it can’t comprehend what happens to these
Gordon Antell
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