Conflicts mount over new home for HPD horses

This report just in from KHOU-TV, Channell 11 Houston
By LEE MC GUIRE

When they’re not on patrol, the 37 horses in HPD’s Mounted Patrol unit live in Memorial Park.

The area is cramped says Lt. Randy Wallace.

It’s also muddy, there’s no grass, and there isn’t much for the horses to do.

“What we have here is just the bare basics,” said Lt. Wallace.

It is three acres surrounded by heavy traffic, but very close to some of the parks the horses patrol.

The new, $7 million facility will have 46 stalls.

It’s five times larger with room to run.

The catch is it’s in the county, not the city.

Crews are already clearing the land along Little York and it was only when this work started that Frank Watson noticed. He opposes the new location. “For four years now they knew about it but they didn’t tell us about it.”

The new patrol headquarters is technically just outside Houston city limits—so the city didn’t have to hold a public hearing.

“And it will cripple any kind of economic growth we have in mind,” said Watson.

Now, former Councilmember Carol Mims Galloway says the site is too far from downtown. “With the cost of gasoline you’re going to have to drive horses almost 11 miles to the downtown area.”

The police say because the new site is just off 59, it will actually be easier to reach most of the city.

Not telling neighbors was just an oversight says Wallace. “It was just something that slipped through the cracks if you will because the property is in the county.”

So the horses are headed for a new home even though their new neighbors are a bit skittish.

On Tuesday, Police Chief Harold Hurtt met with those neighbors at the current mounted patrol facility to talk about their concerns. Mayor Bill White says their voices have been heard, but that the project will go forward.

It’s expected to open by next spring.

Kentucy and Mexico Thoroughbred partnership agreed

BLOODHORSE.COM, a leader in reporting Thoroughbred industry news, reports:

ARTICLE BEGINS:

An agreement signed March 10 will enable horsemen from Kentucky and Mexico to share knowledge and resources and set up commercial and technical exchanges to improve both equine industries.

Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer and José Manuel Alavez, president of the Mexican Association for Equine Development and Promotion, signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a public-private equine partnership during a ceremony at the Keeneland Library.

Farmer said equine interests for the two nations will work together on genetics, nutrition, health, breeding, and other aspects of the horse industry.

“The bottom line is that we will be selling more horses to Mexico,” Farmer said. “That is good for the economy of Kentucky. We’re very, very excited about entering into this agreement and look forward to working together for many years to come.”

Keeneland president Nick Nicholson said the partnership will build on the success Kentucky’s horse industry has enjoyed in selling horses to Mexico.

“Over the last few years, we have sold to Mexico a total of about $17-18 million (in horses) already,” Nicholson said. “The average they are buying is increasing each year. And they are having wonderful success. If you follow their classic races in Mexico, more and more you will see horses that were born and raised in Kentucky and that were sold here.

The agreement calls for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, the state Cabinet for Economic Development, and the state’s trade office in Guadalajara, Mexico, to identify equine businesses willing to help improve the Mexican equine industry. The Mexican equine association is to identify individuals and entities in Mexico that are willing to participate in programs conducted under the partnership.

Farmer said he hopes to expand the concept further into Latin America in the future.

Kentucky exports to Mexico totaled about $1.4 billion in 2007, making Mexico the Kentucky’s third-largest trading partner behind Canada and France, according to the United States Department of Commerce. Of that total, about $31 million was in agriculture-related products.

Kentucky producers exported 5,346 horses around the world in 2007, 21% more than in 2006, the state veterinarian’s office reported. Live animal exports from the U.S. to Mexico totaled about $91 million in 2007, of which 25% consisted of horses, jacks, and hinnies. END

How about that for a stab in the back of America’s Thoroughbreds … literally?

Source: Originally published on Bloodhorse.com

William Shatner annual charity horse show

Save the Date: April 26, 2008

It is nearly that time again when William Shatner produces a remarkable display of equine showmanship in aid of children’s charities, the Hollywood Charity Horse Show.

The welcome page of the show’s website tells us this:

“For the past eighteen years, William Shatner has spearheaded the HCHS to raise money for a worthy children’s charity.



“It was back in the late 1980s that Shatner first watched an exhibition by children who were so severely handicapped that some of them could not hold their head up, yet there they were going through intricate exercises on the back of a horse. The program was sponsored by Ahead With Horses, a therapeutic riding group for handicapped children.

“When the exhibition was over, Shatner sat, deeply affected by what he had seen. “You can’t watch these kids without knowing you have to help, somehow.” And so, in March of 1990 came the birth of the first Hollywood Charity Horse Show. Soon, other charities in need of help were added, small, grass root charities doing big time jobs.

“Today, the Hollywood Charity Horse Show is an ongoing event that garners national press coverage. On one special Springtime Saturday afternoon each year, HCHS brings together world-class reigning horses and riders in breathtaking slides and spins as they compete for top honors in their respective classes.

“Then, as the sunsets, the much anticipated auction and music show put on by headline groups such as Brad Paisley, The Ben Folds Five, Lyle Lovett and this year, Randy Travis, kicks off right after an amazing array of food & fun.

“Come join us this April 26, 2008 for an uplifting and worthy event to support an important cause.”

4:00 p.m. - 7:45 p.m. - Silent Auction
5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. - Arena Show
7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. - Western Dinner, Entertainment by Randy Travis

Get directions, view photos like the one above by Guy Noffsinger, and much more at www.horseshow.org.

Shatner says he learned this Hebrew saying when in Israel, ‘Sussim osim nissim - horses make miracles.”

Read article “William Shatner: Horse Make Miracles” at this link.

Halfway house for horses

By Art Carey, Staff Writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer filed a story entitled “A Halfway House for Sick and Injured Horses”.”

Carey opens his story with:

On Sunday, Nicole Roberts is a slacker. She rises at 5:30, a whole hour and a half later than her usual wake-up time - 4 a.m. She tries to retire by 8:30 p.m., but many nights, she rouses herself frequently to administer medications. She dutifully treks to the unheated barn, no matter how foul the weather, and she stays there until her work is done, no matter how bitter the cold.

Over the years, she has helped foal a few horses, and on nights when she’s waiting for a mare to give birth, she is too alert to sleep. Short, shallow naps are the best she can hope for.

She has been ministering to horses for 28 years, 19 at her present location, a former dairy farm in Toughkenamon, Chester County, a few miles west of Kennett Square. Hers is truly a full-time job - 24 hours a day, seven days a week. She can’t remember when she last took a real vacation.

“An afternoon off would be like a vacation,” says Roberts, 44, without a trace of regret or self-pity. “One thing with horses: They can’t do it themselves. Someone has to take care of them. People send us their horses because they trust us.”

Read full story at http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/16488296.html. More photograph by Inquirer Staff Photograher Michael S. Wirtz, including the one below:

Nicole Roberts, who for decades has run a “lay-up” farm for sick, injured and aged horses in Chester County, applies a splint wrap to the leg of an animal with a ligament injury.
Photograph by Inquirer Staff Photographer, Michael S. Wirtz