‘We really don’t know if she’s dead or alive’
http://www.eveningtribune.com/news/x392062511/
Anne Marie Cray has no idea whether her 5-year-old mare, WeWe C, is dead or alive.
I’m not sure if this story has been posted somewhere else, but here is the follow-up story from The Evening Tribune in Hornell, N.Y., which is in the same county as the farm where the seizure took place.
Cray said she wasn’t contacted by Trupia or Blazejewski following the raid and that she found out about her horse while reading a message board on the Internet. Her boyfriend contacted Trupia after Cray read the post on the Pedigree Query forum.
“He was very upset after speaking with her because she told him that the SPCA mistreated our mare while getting her on the trailer,” Cray said.
“She said the mare was loaded on the trailer with 18 other horses, fell and re-injured her already bad knee. She described multiple horses that she saw get injured in one way or another. She then proceeded to tell him that they were euthanizing any horse that was injured or lame.”
Yeah…okay. She emaciates the animals in her care until they look like walking skeletons and it was the SPCA that was treating them badly during a seizure and injuring them to the point of needing to be euthed. :rolleyes: Sure. Starting to sound like the grandmother of that poor beautiful little Caylee Anthony…serious passing the buck/denial.
My thoughts are with Cray and her mare…hoping to hear a very happy update.
You really want to talk about denial, they have an open house scheduled for October or November, I can’t remember which according to their website. How the heck can you pull something like that off? Pile the bones behind the barn and hope no one notices?
I have known Gerry for over a decade and my head is still spinning over this. I keep trying to spin it in a way that makes semi sense, but can’t do it. She offered free board and a free breeding to my mare when she retired this winter, which I considered to be a kind and generous offer since she knew my money was tight. Thank GOD I didn’t take her up on that offer.
I take it Ms Cray is Soccermom?
If so - GOOD JOB!
I absolutely adore you having the fortitude to follow up as you’ve been saying you would.
Hopefully, you’ll garner enough attention that you will be placed as the “foster home” for that particular piece of evidence (I hate referring to WeWe as a piece of evidence FTR).
Good luck in your campaign - full steam ahead and damn the torpedos (well, maybe not the torpedos bit, they have a fair bit of backlash)
I don’t mean to single you out, but you used the term “know” and you piqued my curiosity. How did you “know” her; from sales, on the track, did she deliver a horse to you at your barn or was it mainly online because we are all on PQ? I’m asking not to put you on the spot but rather to see how good this lady was at hiding things since so many were apparently taken in. Some of the best liars are self delusional–they sell their version of the truth because they truly believe it themselves. But spinning tales is obviously easier to do in cyberspace than IRL…had you ever been to her farm before?
I trained a total of three horses for them over the years. No, I never saw their farm.
In regard to the critical animal protection effort/rescue
Thought this might be helpful information:
http://www.fingerlakesspca.org/
NEED TO CONTACT US (FINGER LAKES SPCA) ABOUT MAKING A DONATION EARMARKED FOR THE HORSE RESCUE; INQUIRE ABOUT A HORSE THAT WAS BEING BOARDED AT THE FARM, FOSTER CARE ASSISTANCE, ETC.?
We appreciate all your calls and contacts to the Finger Lakes SPCA in regard to this critical animal protection effort/rescue. However, we are experiencing high call volume & e-mail overload to our main/general e-mail account. To help facilitate communication and insure you receive a timely response to your contact in regard to these horses, please use the following e-mail address:
It would also be very helpful if you could label the nature of your contact in the subject line (e.g. Donation; Foster/Adopt; Owner Inquiry; General).
News story out of Rochester NY:
Poignant post from one of the rescuers is over at FHOTD:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1207507689303195972&postID=6684350464634685360
Post is from JenK08.
Just read JenK08’s post above. What a horror situation.
I just feel like I want to cry. I know the horses are out of there, but still, this is just heartwrenching sad.
But I guess if we all want to be honest, what is even worse, somewhere out there, there are more horses waiting to die under similar deployable circumstances that may perhaps never have the luck of being rescued.
I guess such is life. Sometimes the thought starving, suffering horses out there (which I’m sure there are) pops into my mind, and saddens me for hours on end.
But at the end of the day, we can only do what we can and offer a helping hand in the cases we know of and first & foremost offer the best to the ones we own & share our lives with ourselves.
Life can be so unfair…
I hope one day soonish we can at least read some wonderful updates of these mares.
If there is a silver lining in this whole mess I believe it is that the mares were for the most part in too poor condition to conceive and carry a pregnancy so thankfully there shouldn’t be a huge baby boom next spring.
Bump - the cost to the FLSPCA to support these horses in foster care has been estimated at $20K for the first month… Help if you can. See www.ac4h.com for specifics.
If there is a silver lining in this whole mess I believe it is that the mares were for the most part in too poor condition to conceive and carry a pregnancy so thankfully there shouldn’t be a huge baby boom next spring.
Actually the opposite may be true. I have several books on breeding, a couple written by Thoroughbred people. Everything I have read states that it’s better to have the mare a little on the thin side (but not starved nearly to death) when breeding because they seem to “take” better than the “fatter” mares. It’s Mother Nature’s way of saying “Yikes, this mare is on the downside and I need to do my best to perpetuate this species!”… Kind of like when there’s a prolonged drought but the pine trees put forth tons of cones in an effort to perpetuate themselves… :uhoh:
Just so you don’t have to look through over 100 posts to find this one, here is the post by JenK08 (if i need to remove it just tell me and I will):
[B][I]I was part of the rescue involving these horses; I was there and saw the condition of these animals. It looked like a concentration camp; I have never seen anything like this. Not a single horse had a healthy body condition score-they were skin and bones. Many of the animals could barely walk, and several couln’t even stand they were so weak. There were 5 small bales of hay on the entire premisis. There were some bags of grain in one barn, but none had been opened and they looked new. Feeding grain with no hay to these animals in this condition would have killed them.
Their feet had not been cared for in at least a year-there were hooves that looked like dinner plates; cracking, malformed, and causing leg issues. The youngstock were full of worms, bloated, and had never had a halter on let alone been seen by a farrier before. The list of medical issues included starvation, vaginal infections, untreated cuts, hoof rot, eye inflamation, bot flies, rain rot, ascarids, and debilitating hoof growth. Many horses had all of these problems.
The wood in the stalls had been eaten nearly clean through in many places, as these animals had been trying to get sustainance. This was beyond cribbing. The stalls were so full of manure in some places the bottoms of the walls were bowed out. Many were on pasture, but there was no grass left and they had no access to shelter. Anyone who walked this farm could see it was a death trap. Everyone was heartbroken. There was laughter as the rescue went on, but it was that nervous joking that goes on when things are so bad you either laugh or weep. None of us could sleep the nights after we were there, and many of us cried once we got into our trucks to leave. You cannot see something like this and not be deeply affected. I pray for this women, that she can see what she did and can just make sure that these horses get back to their owners or get adopted out to good homes. She made a horrible mistake that cost the lives of several of these animals, and she must come to terms with that. At some point she must have loved these animals, but somewhere something went horribly wrong. We are trying our best to make sure all the owners are located and reunited with their animals. As for the accusations that the rescuers were mistreating the horses, it was not true. There was some struggles getting a few of the animals on, but most of them went willingly onto the trailers. Anytime you move over 70 horses there are bound to be a few who have difficulties. We all remained calm, and did the best we could at keeping the animals relaxed. Many of these animals had not been handled in a very long time if at all, but they were all loaded on with no injuries and gotten to safe foster homes.
To sandmarc, I have to ask when was the last time you actually saw the farm in person? I am betting it was at least a year ago. No person, even a complete novice, could see this place and not recognize the horror of it.[/I][/B]
[QUOTE=classicsporthorses;3495264]
soccermom and others, the reason they can’t “release” any of the horses is b/c they are evidence. It is not until a court trial and afterwards, as in the decision rendered, that they are then available.
having had dogs who had been part of seizure cases, this I know. It’s up to the DA and Judge to decide who gets custody and when they can be released.
Soccermom, we are probably an hour or so from there, If you are coming up and need anything let us know.[/QUOTE]
Okay, my concern with this is that their condition at the time of “seizure” is evidence. But once that’s been documented, what good does it do the state to keep these mares from their owners? I’ve seen emaciated horses killed or foundered by the people who were saving them because they overloaded them.
In all honesty, they are not going to trot the horses through the court room. HOPEFULLY their conditions will improve. So why would they even want to retain privately owned horses? One person said that if Geri would surrender the horses they could be out of there faster? HOW can she surrender a horse that she doesn’t own? That makes no sense.
I’m trying to help two owners get their privately owned horses back. There is ABSOLUTELY no question that they were there as boarders. Yet, the state of NY is going keep and hope for enough donations to feed them for the duration of the trial? The trails will take months if not over a year. In the mean time, the horse is under who’s care? and getting what kind of handling?
Surely you can understand that the owners want their mares back on THEIR farms where they can ensure proper care and recovery.
This whole situation is very frustrating, but the comments about keeping horses until the trial is over is just making it worse. Their owners want them back ASAP, they’ll pay to have all the vet work and documentation they want done, but they want the horses back or moved to farms of their choosing as soon as possible. They’ve already been screwed once, but now they feel like they’re getting screwed again (and I don’t blame them).
SPCA DENIES MISTREATING SEIZED HORSES (Evening Tribune)
http://www.eveningtribune.com/news/x1577101789/SPCA-denies-mistreating-seized-horses
I can imagine the owners’ frustration, but in any seizure of animals that I’ve heard about, the animals have not been released for adoption or return to owners until the court cases have been resolved. Even Michael Vick’s fighting pitbulls couldn’t be distributed to various sites for adoption until his case was over. This isn’t something cooked up just to make life difficult for people who care about the horses and want to aid in their recovery.
From that article… bold added…
The SPCA and Mazzo are currently trying to match up horses with their owners. According to Mazzo, there was a lack of documentation kept by Trupia at the barn.
“I have contacted every owner that I am aware of,” Mazzo said. “I would like people to say that they have a horse there and if they can prove that they can get their horse back. There isn’t a lot of information.”
Mazzo said owners will be reunited with their horses as soon as the courts allow it.
Owners of horses at the Norcrest/Middle Creek farm should contact the Finger Lakes SPCA at (607) 776 - 3039 or by e-mail at horserescueny@yahoo.com. The subject line should read “Owner Inquiry.”
On the AC4H forum, a poster wrote that she called the PA SPCA on these people 18 years ago, when there was a similar situation. They then moved to NY. This poster also said she believed they had done the same thing in MD, before moving to PA. Anybody out there remember these cases?
[QUOTE=RainyDayRide;3501914]
I can imagine the owners’ frustration, but in any seizure of animals that I’ve heard about, the animals have not been released for adoption or return to owners until the court cases have been resolved. Even Michael Vick’s fighting pitbulls couldn’t be distributed to various sites for adoption until his case was over. This isn’t something cooked up just to make life difficult for people who care about the horses and want to aid in their recovery.[/QUOTE]
Was Vick boarding dogs for other owners? I can understand that the courts keep any animal owned by Geri as they have the right to terminate that ownership. I’m talking about horses that the courts should have no rights to terminate the ownership on (unless they are considering charges against an owner three states away who was paying board to be screwed like that).
Link please…
Could you post the link please, I’d like to read too. Thanks!
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