Off Track Thoroughbreds

Cool Checkers, front, and Nature’s Fancy were spotted at New Holland by CANTER Mid Atlantic’s Allie Conrad. She took their pictures, posted them to Facebook, and the horses were purchased by Foxie G Foundation from the meat buyer who had them. Photo by Allie Conrad

How two chestnut Thoroughbreds escaped certain death at a Canadian slaughterhouse after they were sold to a meat buyer Aug. 19 came down to a fluke, a photo, and a frenzy to save them.

The horses— 11-year-old gelding Cool Checkers and 10-year-old mare Nature’s Fancy— were run through the New Holland Auction and purchased by a meat buyer so fast that it was almost a miracle that Thoroughbred advocate Allie Conrad caught a look at them, and better than that, managed to take pictures including their lip tattoos, and put out an alert on Facebook page OTTB Connect.

“I hadn’t been to New Holland in 15 years, not since I bought my horse Phinny there, and started CANTER Mid Atlantic because of my experience,” Conrad says. “The reason I stopped by was that I wanted to see the impact we’ve had” with the widespread Thoroughbred re-homing efforts “because when I got Phinny all those years ago, there were about 40 percent Thoroughbreds at New Holland, racing fit, and wearing their racing plates.”

Cool Checkers
Sire: Rubiyat
Dam: Number One Cool
Foal date: Feb. 13, 2003
**
Nature’s Fancy
Sire: Valiant Nature
Dam: Flemish Fancy
Foal date: April 22, 2004 On this return visit, a fluke trip, she walked up and down the aisles and noticed the regal Thoroughbred heads of Cool Checkers and Nature’s Fancy, scared but noble, huddled together.

She approached the frightened horses, flipped their lips, took a picture of their tattoos, and posted it to Facebook. And though it seemed all hope was lost as Conrad snapped that final picture of Nature’s Fancy, who appeared terrified as she was paraded past auctioneers and finally sold, the photos caused an immediate outcry as it made its’ was through social media and beyond.

And to those it reached and touched, the response was overwhelming as they pulled out all stops to save the horses.

“People returned the information immediately!” Conrad says, explaining that as soon as she posted photos of their lip tattoos on Facebook, the horse’s names were found and also posted to Facebook.

Once the names were known, help came out of the woodwork.

Nature’s Fancy walks into the auction. Photo by Allie Conrad

Laurie Calhoun, cofounder of Thoroughbred charity Foxie G Foundation, which had actually re-homed the gelding Cool Checkers as a yearling for breeders Joan and Dale Everett, stepped into the fray immediately. Shocked to learn via a phone call from Maryland horseman Andi Puckett that the chestnut gelding, who had a nice home for 10 years, had been sold at New Holland, she hopped on the phone.

First she notified the Everetts, who urged her to “get the horse back at any cost,” she says. Next, she called a local dealer, who has done yeoman’s work tracking horses and obtaining them from kill buyers, for Foxie G.

“This local dealer has done incredible work for us. He made some calls for me, and at one point we had the incorrect hip number, but he eventually found Cool Checkers with the mare. He asked if we wanted her too and I said of course,” she says.

Hip Number 272 and 271 were worn by the two Thoroughbreds who were saved. The rest of the horses in this group, which were not Thoroughbreds, went to slaughter, according to Allie Conrad.

Calhoun adds, “It was really intense. At one point I tried to find out if the horses had shipped to Canada already” and she feared the worst. Then, when the local dealer found the horses alive, and shipped them to her at no profit to him, she let out a deep sigh of relief.

Both horses are now in quarantine at a Foxie G Foundation barn, where they will be assessed and cared for until a decision is made about their futures.

Foxie G recently enacted strict contractual guidelines prohibiting adopters from transferring ownership to anyone, Calhoun says, noting that Foxie G insists on taking back any horse who does not work out, no questions asked.

Calhoun adds that she is eternally grateful that Allie Conrad decided to drop by New Holland Auction that day. And Conrad, who has re-homed many ex-racehorse Thoroughbreds for CANTER Mid Atlantic says the experience of Foxie G and Cool Checkers shows that even the best re-homing situation can go wrong.

“This can happen to any of us,” Conrad says. — This story was originally published on Aug. 29, 2014.

The cards were stacked against Faith ever being born. Her mother Open Zipper had been purchased and shipped by a meat buyer in the slaughter pipeline before rescue. Faith and mom will travel to Massachusetts soon for permanent sanctuary. Photo by Kay O’Hanlon Myruski

A crippled kill-pen horse who was heavily in foal when she was purchased by a meat buyer in February, driven two hours to a collection facility for slaughter-bound horses, and then miraculously saved, has been offered lifetime sanctuary in Massachusetts, along with her month-old filly.

Christina Sawelsky, a registered nurse and experienced caretaker of five OTTBs she has adopted over the years from the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, stepped up to offer broodmare Open Zipper and her foal Faith a home, without hesitation.

“Just the fact that she was dumped at auction, heavily in foal, and barely made it out of the slaughter pipeline was amazing to me. It was like a movie. I followed the story about them on social media, and when I realized they’d be made available for adoption, I knew I had to help them,” says the Sharon, Mass. horseman. “The fact that she slipped through the cracks after doing so much, and then spent time as a broodmare, inspired me to offer them a soft place to land. And to give the filly a place to grow; she’ll never leave us.”

Open Zipper was among a band of four heavily pregnant mares saved in a multi-prong rescue effort Feb. 29. The rescue, led by Gerda’s Animal Aid of Vermont and supported by numerous individuals and charities, removed four heavily pregnant mares and a fifth who was not in foal, and brought them to safety.

Open Zipper walks with her foal Faith in a Goshen, N.Y. foster home. Zipper, who has a left, front knee injury and gait problems, was heavily pregnant when she was rescued from the slaughter pipeline in February.

Though all the mares were special, Zipper’s story was nearly miraculous, recalls Gerda Silver, who spearheaded the entire effort. Zipper was in the worst shape of them all, and dropped deeper into the black hole of the slaughter pipeline than any of them.

After Silver managed to trace Zipper to a holding facility about two hours from the Pennsylvania livestock auction, and then convince the meat buyer’s son to turn around and bring the horse back so she could be purchased the animal, the appearance of a perfect adoption home made Silver’s heart soar.

“I never expected to find a situation like what Christina is offering her. This is something so wonderful I can’t imagine how it even happened. It’s like a miracle,” Silver says.

Kay O’Hanlon Myruski, a horse rescuer in Goshen, N.Y. who has been caring for Zipper and Faith since they were saved, agrees.

Christina with a TRF adoptee Quantity at her farm in Sharon, Mass. Christina and her daughter Elisabeth plan to create a sanctuary for Open Zipper and Faith.

“This home is so perfect for Zipper and her foal,” Myruski says. “Christina will find that Zipper will be a very easy keeping mare. And even though she has physical difficulties, she has learned to accommodate her bad leg and gait, and is a great mother to her foal.”

She adds, “Open Zipper is a such a high-class mare. You can look at her and see the stamp of old-world European Thoroughbred on her. And her filly is going to be absolutely stunning. She’s nicely bred, with good conformation, and she’s just a pretty, pretty filly.”

Both mare and foal have received clearance from a veterinarian for travel. The plan is to wait for mild weather before Sawelsky hitches up her trailer to personally retrieve them.

When she hauls them into Massachusetts, Sawelsky and her daughter Elisabeth, who is also a nurse, plan to make Zipper and Faith the centerpiece of a horse sanctuary they are beginning to create. They plan to found a sanctuary for Thoroughbreds, which serves adults and children with disabilities.

In her years spent working with human patients, and with Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation adoptee Sing Me Back Home, who she nursed through many illnesses before his death, Sawelsky plans to welcome the mother and foal into the barn with TRF adoptees Private Relations and Quantity. (Please see an earlier story about Sawelsky’s TRF horses here: http://offtrackthoroughbreds.com/2016/01/29/in-tribute-to-her-warhorse-2-others-find-a-home/).

“My daughter and I both love horses. And it’s been a dream of ours to combine our passion of helping people—we’re both nurses, and our love of horses,” Sawelsky says. “We’ve always been drawn to the underdogs and the misunderstood. I think that’s where my love for off-track Thoroughbreds comes from. And kids with disabilities are so often overlooked in their life. I hope to create a sanctuary where kids and horses can find some peace and happiness in each other’s company. And Zipper is the perfect horse for this.”