We tried to find the dams of the three yearlings we adopted from Ernie Paragallo’s Center Brook Farm in New York.

It was just confirmed by the NY State Police that Party Forever, the dam of our colt Bravo, went to slaughter.

Party Forever Colt is leaving Center Brook Farm

Aintjustwhistlin’, the dam of the Adonis filly Star, died at the farm prior to the police raid.

Star, the daughter of Aintjustwhistlin'

We are awaiting final verification that the dam of the Griffinite filly Stripe, Shelly’s Wind, is indeed amongst the group of mares found at Center Brook at the time of the police raid on April 9, 2009.

Aintjustwhistlin’ was 14, Party Forever died at 10.

These mares were part of the worst case of horse abuse in the history of the United States when 177 horses were found in horrifying condition at Mr. Paragallo’s farm. We’ll probably never know how many horses had been at the farm in the winter before the raid and how many were not strong enough to survive until the police arrived in April. Mr. Paragallo will be sentenced on May 18 for 33 counts of animal cruelty he was convicted of.

NBC’s Jill Rappaport reported this past March that she was “elated to report that the vast majority not only survived, but they were ALL adopted into wonderful, loving homes.”
Well, 82 adopted horses out of 177 are not quite the “the vast majority”, and we have yet to find out about the remainder of the horses that were at the farm at the time of the raid.

Let us be clear: This is NOT a story with a happy ending. As of now, Paragallo still owns horses and will also profit from NY breeder awards whenever one of the horses bred at Center Brook wins a race. The 3 babies we adopted required intensive and costly care to restore them to health. So if one of our adopted babies wins a race, Paragallo will earn the NY Breeders incentive awards. He will still be earning money from horses he left to die.

We urge you to write to John Sabini, the chair of NYS Breeding and Development Fund.

The phone # is 518-580-0100-www.nybredfund, and request that Mr. Paragallo not profit any longer from any horses who suffered his abuse.

You can also write Hon. George J. Pulver Jr., 320 Main St., Catskill, NY 12414, who will sentence Ernest Paragallo on May 18 to consider revoking the breeders’ benefits as part of the sentencing.

_{We met Mary in the upstairs stabling area of Claremont Riding Academy visiting her favorite school horse.  The riding school was housed in an old stable building in Manhattan near Central Park.  The riding arena was about street level, the horses lived either upstairs on the second floor or in the basement.  Mary had fallen in love with a very special school horse, Galloway.  Galloway had captured the hearts of many students at Claremont, he was kind and funny and a blast to ride in the city park.  But life in a city stable took its toll on the former racehorse, he was often unsound and it was hard to keep weight on him.}

_{Galloway’s life took as sharp a turn when Mary finally decided to buy him.  And Mary reinvented herself:  The city girl moved out of her doorman building into the bucolic greens of Pennsylvania, the business woman took off her heels for paddock boots and she has since been watching the temperature of horses instead of trade and stock market numbers.}

_{Thank you, Mary, for sharing your story and photographs with us.}

City Girl Meets City Boy

My registered Thoroughbred, Galloway knew Angelika and Sean before I did.  He was their friend in addition to so many other people over the seven years he spent as a ‘lesson’ horse at the Claremont Riding Academy.

Mary and Galloway on Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan

He wasn’t always just a lesson horse…..he has a history…..and a very interesting and noble one at that.   My ‘baby’, was foaled in Ontario on March 14, 1993.  He sold for the first time in Jan 1994 for $21,000 when the mean sales price was $9,000 and then re-sold in Sept 1994 for $37,000 with a mean sales of $22,000.  Someone thought he was something special and meant for the track.  First race was 4/20/96 at Garden State Park and he placed….it was a fast track that day,   Over the next year and a half, he would visit 5 tracks in the Tri-State area, race 21 times, win 3, place 5, show 3, and have jockeys as well known as Edgar Prado ride him.  In fact, as I watched that fateful Kentucky Derby where a cocky bay horse named Barbaro took the track, I commented to my mother “Well, I’d bet on that horse, he looks like G and they share the same jockey”.  When I met the great Barbaro later at New Bolton where I worked, I kissed his nose, stroked his neck and told him in addition to the rest of the world, his distant cousin G wished him a speedy recovery….yes, they are related…..out of Bold Ruler, as so many great horses are.  But back to G…   I meant to get this article in for February posting…..because you see, Galloway is the love of my life.  We met in January of 2004, when as a single woman in her late 30’s, I took up horseback riding.  My dream was to ride in Central Park on a sunny day….and feel as if I’d truly arrived in NYC.  He was the second horse I’d ever ridden at the academy and the first horse I’d ever cantered.  Unfortunately for him, at almost 17 hands, he was good looking,  with a bomb proof temperament, so many people rode him, many times a day. many times a week.  At times having a lesson with him broke my heart, he was so tired, so overused….surviving on sweet feed and Bute.  I told myself that with him and all the Claremont horses I rode, I could promise them an hour with me meant below average demands and lots of treats at the end.

Galloway on his nightly walk with Mary - he was sickly and very thin

Once I gained enough experience to ride in the park, he and I as a team were unstoppable.  I would book him a week in advance for a month…..  Over the Labor Day weekend in 2004 we had a life-changing moment.  I was out in the park and a man on a bridge, a German tourist, yelled out to us “May I take a photo?” and as we stopped to pose, he said, “I’ve already shot you at a distance, I wanted you to know that I thought you and your mount were very well suited”.  As I walked the big man back to the stables, I said to myself  “that’s it, he’s the one, I’m going to buy a horse, and this is the horse”.    Over the next year, according to my instructor, I ‘outgrew’ G and I was assigned to other horses.  I loved my lessons, but I missed G.  During that time, I was sent to FL for work….and G was laid up with bad feet – an issue that plagues us to this day.  I returned after a rough 6 weeks for him (and me!), ”the night manager said to me, “well, I’ve got a surpride for you”, down the ramp comes a horse, it was G.  He walked right up to me and sniffed me from head to toe.  I wasn’t sure what was going on, and my intrsutor said “He thinks he knows you, he’s just making sure are who he thinks you are”.  We had an awesome time that night, my intructor said I sat as tall and as straight with him as he’d ever seen me.  While I was away in the Spring of 2005, he was used for a special assignment.  Maybe others knew what that was…..but I was in the dark.  The summer of 2005 he was very sick, with an upper respiratory infection and I was in negotiation to purchase him.  It was a long and stressful negotiation and for those of you with a love of history, it was liberating him from indentured servitude.  I basically paid the price he commanded for several months work, something most horse people would reprimand me for later, but as I’ve said, he’s my ‘baby’.

Galloway at his new home in Pennsylvania

Fall of 2005 brought him home with me to Pennsylvania.  And that November, he showed up on national TV on “The Apprentice” in the episode where they ride horses in Central Park with Shania Twain.  He is the horse that tries to take Randal back to the barn, bored with all the fussing before the trail ride.  My phone rang off the hook, I owned him by then, but the series was taped months before.  Oh well, the royalties would have bought us a lot of Stud Muffins, but in the end I got the prize!   Now….on to the best, past 5 years of my life!!!!  He is the most amazing horse…..on his back he has willing carried those from 18 months to 67 years of age.

Galloway meets his little "sister" Merrylegs

He is thankful every morning for his grain, his water, his hay.  He walks into his pasture each day sniffing the hay in the feeders and running down to the creek….taking it all in as if it’s the first time he’s seen it.  His best friends are a registered Paint and a Bureau of Land Management Mustang, both geldings.  He lets the Paint rub his head on his butt and they play “Racetrack pony” where in a bit of role reversal, Galloway is the calm one and the Paint chews on his neck as if they are about to load in the gate.  I love this horse about as much as I love anything in my life….my family knows this, and most of them are okay with it.  In 2006, I lost my 16 and a half year old cat to cancer….who did I run to for comfort?  G….and he was there for me, to the point that HE became so distressed he almost went off feed….that’s how sad he was for me.  If I walk into the barn happy and hug him, he’s over the moon excited….about what?  He doesn’t know….and he doesn’t care!  If I need to throw my arms around his neck and cry….he will stand still for as long as I need him to.    The sadder part is, if he’s in pain, he won’t show me.  Back in 2007 he lost hundreds of pounds and I didn’t know what to do for him.  It was a very serious Vit E and Selenium deficiency and the muscle wasting was heart breaking, an acute form of Equine Motor Neuron Syndrome.  However, he fought hard to stay on his feet….and with proper veterinary care, he responded.  So many mornings when things looked bleak I told him “If you don’t want to fight this anymore, I will let you go…..but as long as you’re in it, I’m in it with you.”.  Over the next 6-9 months, he let me know he was in it and would fight to the finish.  He and I have also had lots of farrier bills in the past five years….he has soft soles and under-run heels….no surprise there.  I used to work on Wall Street and was quite the shoe and shopaholic…..but nothing compares to the money I’ve spent for the shoes my boy has been through….again, anything he needs, he gets!!  He’s now barefoot in the rear and has graduated from his elevated bar shoes in front to regular horseshoes.  His arthritis will always haunt us…..but the multiple grams of Bute a day in the past have been replaced with an all natural joint supplement and recent radiographs show his joints are no worse than any other 16 year, soon to be seventeen year old horse.

Galloway happy as can be

In closing, I would like to add that Sean and Angelika have visited my boy over the years, and he remembers them, greeting them warmly.  Sean, as someone who rode him and cared about him, Angelika as someone who kept his tack clean and gave him a gentle pat, kind word and treat as she walked through the barn.  Horses remember those who pay them the smallest kindnesses…..we should all strive to live our lives that way.  Whether we are on the receiving or giving end, they depend on us, acknowlege us and are grateful.  I know few other ways to live my ‘treat others as you wish to be treated’ credo.  God bless all of you who care for these magnificint creatures and I know they will repay your many kindnesses.

The Kill Pen

“Show me your horse and I will tell you who you are.”

Old English

Among the lesson horses at Lisa Leogrande’s Triple L Stables in Fulton, New York, are several Thoroughbreds.  Like many of the horses she has trained, sold or adopted out to new homes, or kept for her own riding stable, these Thoroughbreds were discards. They were not needed or wanted anymore by their owners, sold at auction, and were on the last leg of their trip to a slaughterhouse in Canada when Lisa bought them a new life.

Lisa was the first one to find some of the mares from Ernie Paragallo’s Center Brook breeding farm. It was on one of her regular visits to a so-called “kill pen”, the facility were a dealer keeps horses before they are shipped to slaughter.  Lisa visits the pen whenever she can take on a few horses on her farm Triple L Stable, to rehabilitate and retrain them, giving them a new chance on life.

On March 13, 2009, Lisa found a large group of Thoroughbred mares at the dealer: approximately 20 broodmares with yellow collars around their necks.

“It was a disturbing sight.  Not just because they were in a meat pen waiting to go for slaughter in Canada, but because of the condition they were in”, remembers Lisa. “The dealer was horrified of the shape they were in.  He had the worst in his barn with blankets.  He and I talked on how someone could do this to the horses and that it was sick.”

Casa Eire after her arrival at Lisa's farm in March 2009

“One of the mares would put her head on my shoulder – Casa Eire was my first pick to get on my trailer and she was the only one we could catch. Casa is a wonderful horse with a personality that screams, “I love people and life!”  She also rides like a dream, smooth, classy and safe. I am sure she had not been ridden for many years and she rode right off after getting weight on her and we got rid of her lice problem.

Lucky Val in March 2009

All the horses in that group at the kill pen had huge bald spots from the lice.  No glitter in their eyes and scared to death, running around in the pen.  It was so very hard to catch them.  They only had bands around their necks and numbered tags on their hindquarters.  I wrote down the numbers on the horses I wanted to get loaded on my trailer.  We had to herd them into a smaller pen and them pin them in a corner to catch them and put halters on.  I picked out three of the Paraneck/ Paragallo mares, and three others from the kill pen that day, a total of six horses. We loaded them on my trailer to come home.”

Lisa was curious to find out where the mares had originally come from and started researching them.

Yeah Baby Yeah in March 2009

“I found that they had come from a large breeding farm in Climax, NY, owned by Paraneck Stables owner Ernie Paragallo.  I called The Exceller Fund trying to get enough money to rescue the remaining mares I had to leave behind at the kill pen. Those mares ranged from 4 to twenty years of age. The Exceller Fund gave me some phone numbers to call for help.

After talking with Diane, Lisa and Christy from Another Chance 4 Horses rescue in Pennsylvania, they were able to get four more mares out of the kill pen. Unfortunately the other 17 or so had already been shipped.”

The four mares AC4H took on had been in such bad shape that they could not have survived the transport to Canada. They could therefore not be shipped off right away and were left behind for another time. The delay saved their lives.

Lisa recalls the sorry sight of the horses at the dealer: “All the mares in the kill pen were extremely skinny, lice-infected, had skin lesions, their hooves needed much care. I remember a mahogany bay mare with an almost pie bald face. I found out later that her name was Red Hot Chili Pepper, an Ireland-bred mare who was born on my birthday, March 18.  She was only 6 years old. She will be in my thoughts. Unfortunately she was shipped.”

Casa Eire September 09

“I rescued six horses that day and $ 2,000.0 later they went home with me.  About 60 horses a week go to kill from this one dealer each week.  They do two loads per week with 33 horses per trailer. The horses are killed as soon as they get off the trailer at the slaughterhouse.  Upon arrival the trailer is backed up to the slaughter plant and the horses get unloaded to be processed.  Once the horses are loaded on the trailer at the dealer’s, the trailer is sealed and the seal cannot be broken until the trailer arrives at the plant.

Often, horses go from the auction directly to the plant, they never see a pasture again, hear a kind word or feel a gentle hand. Most of the horses don’t have papers, the dealers don’t really care; they are merely liaison between the sellers and the buyers at the slaughterhouse. When Lisa purchases the horses from the dealer she takes her chance. There are no vet exams, x-rays or test rides. All Lisa can go by is her experience: She looks at the eye of the horse and tries her best never knowing what comes home with her.

Lucky Val June 2009

But she says “OTTBs (off track Thoroughbreds)

Yeah Baby Yeah, June 2009

you can never go wrong on.  You know they ride.  You just have to look at their legs for any injuries.  I work and talk with the dealers and I have learned a lot from going to auctions.”

Lisa Leogrande has rescued many more since that day in March.

Lucky Val feeling good at Lisa's in April 09

Judge George J. Pulver Jr. convicted Ernest Paragallo on all 33 misdemeanour animal cruelty counts in a non-jury trial.

Sentencing is set for May 18, 2010.

Press Coverage of the Ernie Paragallo Trial:

Ernie Paragallo At Court

Bill Finley

Please read Bill Finley’s commentary on the Ernie Paragallo Trial:

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/columns/story?columnist=finley_bill&id=4989950

Feed the horses

James V. Franco is The Record city editor. This is from his Thursday column:
“One of the most remarkable statements in a while was given Thursday by Michael Howard, the attorney representing Ernie Paragallo, a thoroughbred trainer found guilty of 33 misdemeanors for mistreating dozens of horses on his Greene County farm including pretty much starving them.

I don’t have a problem with horse racing. The only thing asked of them is to run fast and they don’t have to wear a skirt or stupid outfit while doing it. Running fast is something they are good at and enjoy.

What happens to retired thoroughbreds is a different issue but that’s for a different column.

Anyway, after Paragallo was convicted by a judge Howard said:

“This requires a horse owner to take on a very high level of burden.”

I can’t help but wonder if that means feeding them.

Colin DeVries

Colin DeVries for The Daily Mail

http://www.thedailymail.net/articles/2010/03/11/news/doc4b9873293e0e4095580602.txt

http://www.thedailymail.net/articles/2010/03/06/news/doc4b91d49121672099560753.txt

http://www.thedailymail.net/articles/2010/03/05/news/doc4b909f9b3f5aa550589346.txt

http://www.thedailymail.net/articles/2010/03/04/news/doc4b8f3dfc431ee040944267.txt

Paul Post for The Record

http://www.troyrecord.com/articles/2010/03/06/news/doc4b91e9b09edf3369476402.txt

Christen Gowan for The Times Union

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=907680&category=REGION

Maureen Harmonay

Maureen Harmonay for  Equine Advocacy Examiner

http://www.examiner.com/x-37163-Equine-Advocacy-Examiner~y2010m3d3-Kill-buyer-testifies-that-Paragallos-horses-were-too-thin-to-send-to-slaughter