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Article Archive > Animal welfare groups worry about horses no one wants Animal welfare groups worry about horses no one wants It's hard to know if a thoroughbred racehorse can be wistful for past glories or harbor worries for his future. But Hong Kong Express, at 15 years old and much the worse for his wear, could be excused if he simultaneously felt both emotions. Life, it seems, has not been kind to the horse whose lineage is said to be traced back to 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat - and who, if not a champion in his own right, was at least a moneymaker for a time. Linda Shave has called him Hong Kong for short since taking responsibility for what had been an abused and emaciated horse on July 3. And if the horse she and her friend Kathy Hesse have come to love carelessly wanders his paddock on the Wall-Howell boundary, they are worrying for him. Medically, Shave said, he's making a comeback. The multiple scars from repeated attacks by another horse have healed, a tribute to Hong Kong's stamina and the medical skill of veterinarian Cathy Ball. Hong Kong has gained most of his weight back, Hesse said, but he still eats like, well, a horse. That's a bale of hay each day topped off with two shovels of grain, Shave said. There's also that midmorning snack of a bucket of carrots, she added. The hay alone is a good $10 a day. Fortunately, she works at what the sign still calls White Oaks Farm, although the name has been changed to Dream Acres by the new owner, Gary Cutler. Now, Hong Kong is also going to get some help from the Monmouth County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose chief investigator has tracked down Hong Kong's original owner, with the help of Ball, and received a pledge that she will help the SPCA defray the cost of the horse's care. But where he'll finally end up is still an open question, and part of an issue extends well beyond Monmouth County. Unwanted horses Testimony before Congress this year revealed that as many as 100,000 horses across the country may be in need of homes. Their prospects are not good, experts and animal advocates say. The simple fact is that it's difficult to find a place for large animals that are expensive to care for, they add. Hong Kong is doing better than many other former racehorses, said Carole Balmer of Holmdel, who devotes much of her time as an advocate for unwanted horses. At least he has a safe place to stay, she added. "Rehabing, rehoming and saving not just racehorses, but all horses, from slaughter has been an ongoing battle for many of us for quite some time now," she said. Horses have become expendable items, said Victor "Buddy" Amato, chief humane police officer for the Monmouth County SPCA. It was Amato's investigation that resulted in Hong Kong being removed from a Howell location where he was starving and under continual attack from another horse. A confluence of events has created a glut of unwanted horses, Ball said. The economy has soured and the horse-racing industry itself is in decline, she added. "As soon as these horses are not running in the money anymore, their owners want to get rid of them," Amato said. "Most times they don't care how they get rid of them." It's what Balmer called the "dirty little secret" of the racing and rodeo industries: a horse's fall from valued property to a neglected animal or, worse, a butchered flank of horsemeat. In Washington, Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Dan Burton, R-Ind., have introduced a bill that would restrict the killing of U.S. horses. The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2008 would prohibit the slaughter of U.S. horses for human consumption as well as their export for slaughter in other countries. The bill was released from committee Tuesday, although a vote by the full House has not been scheduled. Prior to federal laws that forced the closure of all three foreign-owned plants in the United States, 80,000 to 100,000 horses were being slaughtered in the country and processed for human consumption, according to the Humane Society of the United States and testimony before Congress. Now, the society said, thousands of live horses are transported across the border to Mexico and Canada for slaughter. The horses are sold as food, and often their former owners are unaware of the animals' ultimate fate, Balmer said. No easy task Meanwhile, a number of organizations are pushing programs that range from saving the West's wild mustangs to more modest goals closer to home. Groups like ReRun Inc. have chapters in New Jersey, New York and Kentucky, where they put discarded racehorses up for adoption, Ball said. Another national group, the Communication Alliance to Network Thoroughbred Ex-Racehorses, or CANTER, has found homes for 5,000 horses in the 11 years it's been in existence. But their representatives say they are forced to turn away about 10 horses a week. "It's not like finding a home for a dog or a cat," said Ursula Goetz, the executive director for the Monmouth County SPCA. "Even that's difficult. We have about 300 of those we're caring for on any given day." In addition, a municipality's zoning ordinances can also limit areas where a horse can be kept, officials said. In Hamilton, the Standardbred Retirement Foundation spends more than $200,000 a year boarding retired standardbred racehorses and working to find them homes, said Genevieve Sullivan, the group's executive director. They have 160 on hand at present, she said. Among their adoptees are 15 horses assigned to the Newark Police Department's mounted division and another three with the Rutgers University police in New Brunswick, she said. Sullivan said she hopes the racing industry will lead the way in helping to finance horse rescues. "I'd like to see a portion of the wagers from every track across the country put into a fund where registered horse rescue groups can draw on," she said. Standardbreds can have a racing life from age 2 until about 14, and might live for as long as 30 years, she said. Unlike some others, Sullivan said she isn't popping any champagne corks about the congressional moves to ban horse slaughter. "I don't think slaughtering these horses is a good idea. I don't think anyone does," she said. "But what happens now? That's another 80,000 horses we need to care for, and our rescues are already operating at capacity. I'm not sure that in some cases, humane euthanization of a horse isn't preferable to his being turned over to new owners again and again or sent on a truck to be slaughtered out of the country under horrible conditions. A lot of the horses that end up in the kill pens are horses that no one wants." A horse may have as many as three adopted homes in a lifetime, Sullivan said. Not all of them are good ones, she added. Such was the case with Hong Kong Express. The former owner who turned him over to the place where he endured such suffering was horrified to learn what had happened, said Ball, the veterinarian who helped nurse him back to health. "She had undergone heart surgery and had no way to take care of him," Ball said. "The man who took him convinced her he would give the horse a good home. She believed him. Now she is drawing up papers to ban that man from ever having the horse again, and she told me she wants to help us pay for Hong Kong's upkeep." "I'm also working with the SPCA to find him a good, permanent home," Ball said. "There's just so much need and so few places for these horses."
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