Sold without Pedigree.
Where do I even begin?
A year ago, I paid $20 for a gelding to get him out of the killpen at a local sale. He was so very sick, I didn't have the heart to leave the poor boy in there to suffer through who knows how many more days/weeks of not being fed, not being medicated.
His head was as big and swollen as an elephant's. His legs were so stocked up they looked like tree trunks. He couldn't lift his head much. I don't know how he was breathing. There was snot running from his nose in rivulets. He stood in a pen that was about 10x60 with 6 other horses, all underweight, all off the track Thoroughbreds.
I called my friend who initially had asked me to stop at the sale and gave her the tattoo numbers I could read under those 7 lips.
These horses had all been shipped in by one individual named L. Browning, a known kill buyer who used to regularly pick up loads at Riverdowns.
According to racing authorities there, this man is and at the time, was, banned from the backside of River.
Somehow, he still picked up a nice load of horses, who weren't running worth-a-crap from bottom rung trainers who don't feed their horses, so they can't run worth-a-crap, anyhow. Speculation goes that one of this man's sons actually picked up the load.
And he paid cash money for them.
Included in that load and ending up right in front of me, was a pathetically thin, horribly sick gelding named Out Bid (NY).
I thought I would take this boy to my barn, call the vet out and have him euthanized. I just couldn't stand by and watch him suffer. As sick as he was, the killer probably wouldn't want him (which he didn't, hence my $20 take-home-price). Not only that, this particular buyer actually HELPED me get the horse.
Since the Browning man who brought the load of horses down, dumped them into the pen and then took off and left, and no one bid on this horse, he probably would have been put out back into one of the pens and left there.
Perhaps a kind soul might have shot him, perhaps they might have given him a bit of hay and water before ending his misery.
Or he may have been left out back until those tree trunks finally gave out and he could no longer hang on.
Since the barn I leased was the next property over from the sale, I took ole Buddy (this is what I called him because I didn't know his name) out of the sale yard by leadrope and simply walked him the 100 or so yards over to my barn. In the dark. It was around midnight.
As we walked, Mr. Last Leg perked up a little.
By the time I got him settled in straw bedding, with fresh water and a huge pile of clean, green, hay, he was happily munching away and nickering at me every time I walked past.
He seemed to have improved by morning. After a bath, he sure looked a whole lot better. When the vet came out, the diagnosis was "perhaps not strangles" but if he is improving by just eating, let's treat him and see.
What turned out to be perhaps not strangles was the worst case of bastard strangles along with Equine Purpura Hemorrhagica.
Ever heard of that?
Me neither.
Throughout the days and weeks to follow, while he did improve, he still cropped up with problems. After 6 months, he seemed to be good enough to be pasture kept (a friend of mine took him in, as I vacated the leased property because a great deal of problems cropped up from a certain Deb Jones from California making calls to killbuyers who were present at that particular sale and berated them, etc. Since these "gents" were all under the impression that I was the one causing the trouble and making the calls, I was told that they would arrange for animal control to impound my horses, they then would buy them from animal control and divy them up among each other to sell to slaughter and thus be reimbursed for their "troubles". I got the hell out of dodge.)
Being out in pasture, Buddy took a step back and re-erupted with strangles, yet again.
Needless to say, it was touch and go with him for a long time but he is now completely healthy, gaining the weight back he had lost once again and completely sound.
Back up a little to the days after his arrival. After speaking with the racing officials at River, I was told that the trainers there knew better than to send horses to the killers and would no longer be welcome on the backside if they got caught doing so.
I spoke to Buddy's trainer. Mike York. I won't reiterate what people think about Mike York. If you're from Kentucky or around Southern Ohio, make some calls. Ask people. Form your own opinion.
York swore to me he had no idea how the horse ended up at this sale (uh hu...) and that he would get me his papers. He thought his wife had them.
I called him again a few weeks later and was again told that he would locate those papers for me and send them to me. (uh hu...)
You bite your tongue and just act sweet and friendly. Give people enough rope and they will hang themselves every single time.
It's been a year. The racing office told York to surrender those papers to me. He was given the benefit of the doubt. (uh hu...)
Today, I logged onto the JC Registry to check on a horse's registration status.
I don't know what made me look up Out Bid.
There in plain old English, listed among the Registration Activity, it states:
SOLD w/o Pedigree.
You cannot imagine the anger I felt. I called the JC. The young lady there looked up the actual paperwork.
The signatures on the "sold without pedigree" paperwork are the following:
Seller: Mike York
Buyer: Larry Browning.
This registration revocation is, according to JC Rules, irreversible.
I didn't actually need the papers. I would never have raced this boy again.
Not the point. It's the principle.
Give people enough rope, they WILL hang themselves. EVERY SINGLE TIME.
The truth ALWAYS comes to light.
I can't imagine how Mike York thought he was going to get away with
"Oh my God, I can't believe he ended up at a slaughter sale!" I sold him to a nice man who was going to use him as a kids horse!"
I might be inclined to believe that, if it weren't common and public knowledge that Mike York and Larry Browning have dealt with one another for years.
Oooopsie.
Out Bid (NY) is ready for something other than being a pasture puff. He is available for adoption.
He is sound, rideable, kind, smart. He needs the same in a person. Well, except for the rideable part, I suppose.
Contact me if you're looking for that type of horse. He's a bit plain in looks but has lots of bone and is 16.1 or taller.
Sold without Pedigree? Really?
Tell that to the horse.
He looks just like his sire.
Take Me Out
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