By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
When a man gave up ownership of his severely neglected horse to the Humane Society Serving Crawford County, it sent shockwaves through the community. But the people who stabled their horses at Red Rose Stables, a boarding facility on Stetzer Road, believe they felt the backlash the most.
Benjamin Lowe boarded the 21-year-old horse named Rudy out at Red Rose Stables and it was from there that the Humane Society seized the horse on Jan. 8. During a civil case in Crawford County Municipal Court that same month, humane agent Tami Rike said Rudy had a prominent spine and protruding rib and hip bones, along with a sunken face and a coat matted with manure. A vet later determined that Rudy scored a 1.5 out of 10 in body condition.
Rudy is now in the care of a foster family, but his Red Rose family is still feeling the repercussions of being caught between a moral rock and an unimaginable hard place.
The soft sounds of horses munching on their hay and shifting around in their stalls could be heard as the families involved with Red Rose gathered in the center of the 23-stall barn. After news broke that Rudy was taken from the stables and would be under the care of the Humane Society, some boarders were concerned that the news of Rudy’s seizure would continue to reflect badly upon them.
“We all feel the same,” said Kim Faulkner, who has three horses stabled at the barn. “I don’t think it was too late for Rudy to get taken, but we do think he should have been taken sooner.”
The case of Rudy is one well-known within the Red Rose circle.
“The horse was in fine condition when it came in here. The guy that owns the horse, he would only feed the horse properly from mid-March until after the Crawford County Fair,” claimed Ryan Weir, who boards five of his horses at the stables.
Weir was furiously passionate about the treatment Rudy received and the bad name he felt had been given to the barn.
“It straight up p—– me off,” Weir said about seeing Rudy in such a neglected condition. “I tried to buy the horse twice; he refused. The only reason the horse is alive today is because everybody in this barn spared what little feed we had.
“Hay’s not cheap. We spared what we could to feed the horse to keep him alive,” Weir said. “But it’s the owners responsibility to feed the horse . . . Everybody’s looking bad at Jeff (the Red Rose owner) because the barn is where the horse came from.”
At Red Rose, boarders are required to provide their own feed for their horses. As Weir described it, you can rent the horse’s apartment, but you still had to stock its fridge. Sometimes, however, families would help one another out when someone could not make it to the barn to do their chores, from feeding to helping out cleaning stalls.
“Anything extra they were supposed to be paying Jeff to do,” said Gretchen Jewett, who trains horses at the stables. “He (Jeff Ash) would just jump in and do it. He’s the one that put the blanket on the horse. It didn’t have enough fat on it to stay warm.”
Jeff Ash, a tall, quiet man, leaned back against one of the stalls as the boarders discussed one of the former equine tenants. He purchased Red Rose nearly 10 years ago and knew this kind of news would not bode well for his barn.
“It upsets me. What am I supposed to do?” Ash asked. “The Humane Society came out and said we can’t take him if you guys feed him and clean his stall. He needed to be taken. I didn’t have a choice.”
Did the Red Rose community step in too late to call foul on the treatment of Rudy by his former owner? They did not think so.
“When we say there were several of us who threw feed, there comes a point when a horse that age gets so far behind the eight ball that it’s going to take a whole lot to get it back to where it needs to be,” Faulkner said. “That is why the horse was where it was. None of us were really supposed to be taking care of the horse. It’s unfortunate. We were all very sad about it.”
Anita Wurm, another boarder, said a humane agent talked to the entire barn in October about the proper care of a horse upon the request from some of the boarders. They hoped that the presence of a humane agent in the barn would be enough to get help for Rudy. Instead, Wurm said, Rudy was put in one of the outside lots by Lowe. She said they were also told how hard it was to get a horse taken away from its owner.
“What are we supposed to do? It has to be almost near death,” she remembered being told. She added that Lowe had been reported a number of times before coming to Red Rose. “Why weren’t they following through and checking up on the horse?”
Wurm said they were told that day that unless the animal was “standing in a foot of their own feces” or did not have water or feed at the time, then the agency was not able to do anything. She added that the people who stable at Red Rose were thrown under the bus by the Humane Society by giving Rudy a little too much for them to be able to step in, and again by the community.
“Well, shame on you folks for walking by every day and not doing anything,” Wurm said with scornful mockery on how people have responded to the news. “It doesn’t make sense that we would walk by one certain horse and ignore one certain horse. It makes no sense.”
“We all knew Rudy; we all felt bad for Rudy; we all tried to save Rudy,” Weir said. “But the bottom line is Ben owned Rudy and there’s nothing we can do.”
Julia Plank had been boarding her horse at Red Rose since May and noticed the dullness coming into Rudy’s eyes over the passing months.
“It’s depressing,” Plank said. “He was right next to my horse and everyday I’d look at Ty and it’s like, he looked good, and I’d see Rudy. It’s like – I can’t really do anything because it’s not mine.”
“It’s not a reflection of here at all. Yeah, his (Rudy’s) physical condition was deteriorating, but it wasn’t because a lack of caring people,” said Amanda Ryan, who has boarded her horse at Red Rose for two years. “We did everything we could, including calling the Humane Society.”
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