What a terrible article. The partners didn’t lose against the thief - they won, but she disregarded the order. She was acquitted in criminal proceedings, but pretty hard to meet the criminal standard when the thief has an ownership interest in the horse. Kind of infuriating that she’s now profiting from her misconduct with this book, but can’t imagine there’s much of a market for it.
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The only people who can legally impound and take a horse is well…the government. Animal control. This was not a “rescue”. Sure, she was worried about his well being, and maybe rightfully so if they weren’t acting in the best interests of the horse. What blows my mind is the money and time they spent trying to get back an at best, give-away horse, from someone who obviously cared for him. Not that that makes it okay. It was theft if she didn’t 100% own the horse.
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Totally agree with you that it wasn’t a rescue. As to theft, not necessarily - the rights of the owners should have been spelled out in the contract. It wouldn’t be unusual at all for one party to have the right to control where the horse went. Since she lost the civil case - over the contract - that obviously wasn’t the case here.
A contemporaneous article has a little more nuance
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jan-20-me-horsetheft20-story.html
I am confused by references to 2013. The only “Urgent Envoy” I see is a 2001 model. This theft occurred in 2004.
Poster is off by a decade for some reason. All of these dates appear correct if you add another 0 instead of a 1. Should be 2001, 2003, race on 6/16/04.
Which begs the question why NPR picked it up. The book was published in September of 2018.
And why bring Santa Anita into it…
Wherever any stands on racing, it is shocking how far downhill journalism has gone even among respected outlets. That LA Times article from 2007 was way more balanced than anything I have seen on a racing topic recently.
