South Woodstock — Ruth Thompson, of Dublin, N.H., leaned against a stall at the Green Mountain Horse Association Friday and stroked the face of Gallant Lad.
Pinned to the stall wall was a photo of the award-winning gelding from a happier time — standing in a stadium, a rider atop his back and a large green rosette pinned to his side.
Now, according to officials at the Lucy Mackenzie Humane Society, the 21-year-old Arabian still is struggling to gain weight a month after being seized from a South Woodstock farm where he and 22 other horses allegedly suffered from undernourishment and neglect.
While most of the animals are doing “as well as can be expected,” according to a veterinarian, officials say there’s still a long road ahead, and a few horses, including Gallant Lad, are struggling more than others.
“My heart breaks,” said Thompson, one of more than 200 volunteers who have signed up to care for the animals around the clock, including a pair of overnight shifts, since Nov. 13. Sleeping bags sit under a table in the office for those who choose to use them.
Thompson said she makes the 90-minute drive once or twice a week, and her eyes welled as she considered the difference between the image of Gallant Lad in the photo and the creature standing before her.
“I just want him to get better,” she said.
Randolph resident Debbie Ogden, another one of the volunteer caregivers bustling around the barn Friday morning, said the old photo of Gallant Lad made her “burst into tears” the first time she saw it.
As she filled 23 buckets with varying amounts of alfalfa cubes specified for each of the horses, Ogden remembered thinking to herself, “It’s so horrible, but OK, this is what we have to work toward.”
Ogden said she’s seen the horses come a long way, physically and emotionally, since they arrived at the barn last month.
“We’re seeing them wake up and become more true Arabians. … We’re very much taking joy that they’re starting to express themselves,” she said.
Meanwhile, the criminal case against the herd’s owner, Marjatta Lavin, is proceeding through Windsor Superior Court. Lavin, who pleaded not guilty last month to 10 counts of animal cruelty related to 10 of the horses, was recently assigned a public defender by Judge Karen R. Carroll after Lavin’s initial request for a public defender was denied by another judge at her arraignment.
Lucy Mackenzie, which has served as the court-appointed guardian for the horses since they were seized, has recently sent applications to some people who expressed interest in fostering some of the horses, said President Jeanne Matos. Lucy Mackenzie would remain the legal custodians in those cases and none of the horses could be permanently adopted without a court order.
But, Matos said, the process to find the right foster home is tedious, especially during the winter, when most horse owners have already parceled out the hay and other materials they will need for the season.
She expressed deep gratitude to Green Mountain Horse Association, which is boarding the horses there free of charge.
“At least they’re here,” Matos said, “and if we have to keep this going until spring, we will do it.”
The state has filed a motion asking the court to force Lavin to pay for expenses related to the horses’ care while they are in the custody of Lucy Mackenzie.
No imminent court dates were included on the docket for Lavin’s file. A hearing planned for this month, originally scheduled as a time for Lavin to tell the court whether she had hired a lawyer or would request to represent herself, was canceled.
Two phone numbers publicly listed for Lavin were not in service on Friday. A message left at a third number in her name Friday afternoon was not returned. Messages for her public defender, Daniel Stevens, were not returned.
She previously told the Valley News that she “categorically” denied the allegations that the horses were mistreated.
In a letter filed with the court Nov. 21, Lavin, 63, said that she did not understand the application for a public defender when she first filled it out and overstated her finances. She said she has experienced some financial duress since the 2011 death of her husband, telecommunications company CEO Edward Lavin, and has sold off several assets including a dump truck, tractors, a pool table and grand piano.
She claimed Edward Lavin, who suffered from dementia, was a “victim for blackmail,” which she reported to authorities, and that some of his actions “destroyed” her credit.
Lavin said her only income is a pension of $1,500 a month and some rental income of $600 a month, and that she relies on her daughter and friends for assistance.
“I was married for 33 years taking care of the farm for my husband and fell into (a) situation I did not ask for,” Lavin wrote in the letter. “But my great sense of responsibility made me take care of the farm, dedicating 25 years of my life solely to the horses and their well-being.”
Woodstock’s 2013 grand list shows Lavin owned at least four properties in town. She now owns two, according to town officials and tax records — a commercial property at 61 Central St. assessed at $475,400 and the 91-acre farm on Skyland Lane in South Woodstock assessed at nearly $1.9 million.
In a handwritten post-script at the bottom of the typed letter, she noted that her properties are “not liquid nor are they in my total control.”
Lavin previously told the Valley News that she previously had sought help caring for the horse from Lucy Mackenzie to no avail.
On Friday, Matos and Executive Director Heidi Edmunds, who is also the animal cruelty officer for Windsor County, disputed Lavin’s claim, saying that humane society officials visited her property multiple times in 2010, providing hay, treatment for eye problems and hoof-trimming, before Lavin “kicked us off the property,” Matos said.
The horses were in “bad” condition then but not as bad as their current assessment, she said. She said the cruelty case against Lavin was a long time in the making, and that officials wanted to make sure that they had long-term plans to accommodate the horses and enough information to hold up in court before they moved forward with a seizure.
“People don’t realize what’s involved in this,” she said, saying her focus has always been on the sustaining momentum in the months after the horses were seized.
She said many of the volunteers caring for the herd are former employees of the Lavins’ horse farm, Skyland Arabians.
Veterinarian Heather Hoyns, of Evergreen Equine, who has been working with Lucy Mackenzie, said she recently received test results on 20 of the horses that came back negative for equine infectious anemia. That’s a good sign, she said, but she said many of them have “severe problems” with their teeth and mouths.
The costs are adding up. Lucy Mackenzie spokeswoman Gina McAllister estimated costs for “consumables” — hay, alfalfa cubes and alflalfa hay — come up to nearly $5,800 per month.
“That does not take anything else into account, such as the considerable amount of veterinary care we’ve needed and will need on a regular basis,” McAllister wrote in an email.
Matos and Edmunds said they’ve received donations ranging from supplies to hay to money, and they continue to seek more. They recently produced a YouTube video and launched an online fundraiser, viewable at www.crowdrise.com/hopeforhorses.
Maggie Cassidy can be reached at mcassidy@vnews.com or 603-727-3220.
