The interior of the auction was darkly lit and the stalls were made of wood beams. A catwalk stretched across the stalls. There were very few horses at Sugarcreek that Friday. The auction could easily hold 100 horses but all of them were crammed into one tiny part. Four horses shared a stall made for one. The floors were made of concrete and there were no shavings in the stalls. The horses did not have access to hay or water for the day. There were at least 20 healthy and well-kept standardbreds who were not broke to ride. In the back, there was a small pen for the leftovers (a cow, a black mare and a Belgian) from last week's auction that didn't sell. Leroy Baker, the own and operator of Sugarcreek, kept his two healthy and fit horses with them. While they did have hay and water, they were standing in a couple inches of manure.
We tried out several horses, including a middle-aged chestnut gelding named Buddy. He was standing alone in a stall, pacing and bobbing his head. He was chewing on the wood. He had a cut over his left eye. He was well-trained and rode fairly nice but his owner was there and told us not to buy him. Apparently, Buddy had broken his foot and that he wasn't sane as he had rarely been outside previously. While he was sweet and loving, we could not take him because of the danger he could have been to the kids at the farm. He went to a meat dealer.
While I did not witness large displays of cruelty toward the horses, one man, however, was not afraid to whip horses or cows with his flag for little reason. At one point, a horse was not entering a pen packed with other horses and he yelled at it and slammed the door on the horse's rear-end. The auction was slightly dangerous as you could be in the aisle ways and they would send horses running down it.
According to a horse trader, there was a dead horse at the auction. He was out back and had looked like he had been there was awhile. However, when we went to look for him, his body had already been removed.
The fate of the horses didn't hit me until the actual auction. At this point, I truly realized that most of these horses would be dead by the end of the week.
We sat down for the auction around one and they showed one or two horses at a time. The bidding commenced and horses were going from as little as $100 to as high as $800. I felt sick the whole time. These men only saw these horses as money and not as companions with kind and gentle souls. We got two out of the three that we wanted but we were outbid on another gelding. His fate is unknown. However, we were able to save the black mare from the leftovers from last week's auction.
During the auction, a skinny Belgian gelding entered the pen. He was looking all around and was moving slowly. You could see the warmth and fear in his eyes. He broke our hearts. We knew that we had to take him home with us. He was sold to a meat dealer for $100. After the auction, we found his buyer and bought the Belgian from him for an additional $100. Next we had to find him. We did not know his auction number so we tracked him down from sight. He was with three other skinny Belgians but we found him based on his halter color and the look in his eye. The worst part was that the meat dealer didn't even remember buying him or even that he bought a horse for $100. These are lives. These are lives that shouldn't be bought or sold as if you were buying and selling car parts. They have feelings. They feel pain. Their lives aren't to be taken lightly.
So we brought home four horses. Jasmine, the one who is left over from the week prior, was bought for $650. She is underweight but generally healthy. She is an older been-there-done-that kind of horse. Layla, a middle-aged Arabian, is also a little underweight but very well-trained. We were taken aback by her the instant we laid our eyes on her. Something about her just clicked for us. Charlie, a pony, wasn't our first choice as he was not broke but ended up on our trailer just the same. He is not even 5 years old. Jake, the Belgian, is severely underweight but is otherwise young and healthy.
As we were loading our trailer, a truck owned by a meat dealer pulled up and started to load. It was the truck that Jake would have ended up on. At this point, a week after the auction, he probably would have been dead if we didn't buy him.
We saved four lives last Friday. Even though I think of Buddy often, we would not have been able to take home the four that we did if he had ended up on our trailer. We saved four beautiful lives on Friday; four lives that would have ended if we had not been there.
However, there are still thousands of horses that go for slaughter each year and the numbers aren't slowing. If you would like to donate to save horses, please go to this link: Gofundme.com/saved
All photos are courtesy of Happy Tails Farm & Rescue Center and Thunder Ranch Horse Rescue Project.
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