Reigning Princess has a future Horse whisperer grants filly a future Wednesday 09 July 2008
Photo by Carolyn Wall. Horses, like people, respond to, and recover, with love.
By Carolyn Wall Gazette Correspondent
The golden palomino filly in a Colorado slaughter feed lot had become entangled in barbed wire and had wounds on her pasterns, but Jean Gross of New Hope PMU Equine Rescue in Star Valley saw special qualities that were apparent through the scruffy winter coat and runny nose.
"We had to get her out of that terrible placeand bring her home so we could get her illness and injuries treated," Gross said.
When Gross reached a friend’s ranch in New Mexico, she learned that the yearling was very sick with pneumonia.
Through intense treatment and therapy, the filly is alive and well today and has been adopted by a Payson woman who had dreamed of owning a horse since age 11, when her father died and the family horse was sold.
The filly now has a name, Reigning Princess, and a future.
The woman who adopted her is learning from Gross about training a yearling. “Princess is a longtime dream come true,” the woman said. “She is the most gentle horse I have ever encountered, and I’m most grateful to Jean. Jean is a masterful horse trainer, and I’m learning so much from her.”
The "beautiful, friendly, trusting baby," as Jean Gross described her, was given up for slaughter by her original owner because of her injuries, just as 6,000 foals have been given up, who were born each spring to mares which are used by the pharmaceutical industry to produce Premarin and Prempro, hormone replacement therapy drugs taken by over 13 million women for the effects of menopause.
Wyeth Pharmaceuticals has reduced the production of these drugs because of adverse side effects of the drugs, and studies that show increased risk of breast cancer, heart attack, stroke, blood clots and Alzheimers or dementia, and because of pressure from PMU rescue organizations who objected to the treatment of mares and their offspring.
"If they stop the production of Premarin tomorrow, I don't know what Wyeth will do," Gross said. "They subsidized these farmers for a year after their contracts were cut in 2003 and 2004. I don't know if they're going to do that again. If they cut a whole bunch at once, we don't know what will happen to these horses. Pregnant mares go to slaughter as well as nonpregnant mares and foals."
There are six slaughter houses in Canada that produce horse meat that is sent to France, Belgium, Holland and Japan – countries where the meat is considered a delicacy and is sold for $20 to $21 per pound.
The last slaughter house for PMU horses in the U.S. closed in 2007.
The hormone replacement therapy drug is derived from pregnant mares' urine (PMU), with requirements that the mares be impregnated annually. The mares are kept in small pens for seven months, until they give birth.
Gross said the PMU farmers let the mares out to foal in April.
"It's April in Canada and some of the babies freeze to death," she said. The mothers have two to three months to wean the foals before they are sent back to the rows of urine-collecting stalls. The urine is extracted from the mares, who are attached to rubber tubing extended from the ceiling.
"It's awful," Gross said. "And all that because of a drug."
The babies stay out until September and are then taken to auctions and feed lots. There were 70 auctions of PMU horses in the United States and Canada last year.
"Those were just a few that we could find the names of," Gross said.
Last year Bob and Jean Gross and their partner, Debbie Coburn, the three members on the board of directors at New Hope PMU Equine Rescue, brought five rescued horses to Star Valley and one to Coburn's facility in Aztec, New Mexico.
They went to two auctions and paid $300 to $600 for each horse.
"They were wild," Gross said. "The PMU babies are not handled at all. The first contact they have with people is when they're rounded up and put in trucks."
In Star Valley, Bob and Jean Gross herded the rescued horses into stalls where they were allowed to settle in.
"We feed them and talk to them," Jean Gross said.
She said she would go into the stalls with a chair and sit there with hay in her lap. Noelle and Cimmaron, Destiny, the mare and her foal, Trinity, and Princess finally got to the stage where Gross could touch their heads while they were eating.
When she could finally touch them, Gross put halters and lead ropes on them and took them out of their stalls.
"It took a week to a week and a half before we could touch them," Gross said. "We work with these babies and get them settled down. Gentle methods, never anything harsh."
Little by little, leading them, handling them, touching their legs and picking up their feet, teaching them to take treats gently, the Grosses work with the horses so they can go to permanent homes, thus leaving room for more horses.
The nonprofit organization in Star Valley is just one of many PMU Rescue organizations in the United States and Canada that have put Wyeth Industries in a bad light because of information they've uncovered about the treatment of these horses.
The United Pegasus Foundation is working with a farmer in Saskatchewan who went out of business and downsized by over 100 mares, Gross said. "He's trying to sell his mares rather than send them to slaughter. He has a heart, anyway. There are others who treat them like livestock."
Gross said Wyeth has told PMU farmers who are still under contract to them not to sell their horses to rescue organizations and to others who are concerned about these horses.
"Investigators have uncovered the truth about the Premarin industry and Wyeth," Gross said. "I know first hand. I tried to buy a foal from a PMU farmer and they found out I was a member of FANI, a foal rescue organization, and they wouldn't sell me the foal."
New Hope PMU Equine Rescue is launching its 2008 "Bring the Foals Home Campaign" and, plans to get as many foals out of auctions and feed lots as possible.
"The babies will begin going to the feedlots and auctions in huge numbers this summer," Gross said. "Our goal is to get as many of these babies out as possible in August and September. We need people willing to adopt, and we need funding."
Gross said that historically horses have always been used as working animals, to help people. Now, she said, they need help.
"They're not slaughter animals. We've helped rescue 10 horses so far and assisted a couple in Young rescue a horse. If I can get one of our horses adopted, I can rescue another one," she added.
Donations can be sent to NHER at HC4 Box 29T, Star Valley, AZ 85541.
People interested in sponsoring a horse, volunteering or providing a foster home or adopting, can contact Jean Gross at (928) 468-1514 or by visiting the New Hope PMU Equine Rescue, www.newhopepmuequinerescue.org.
NHER is a nonprofit 501(c)3 charitable organization, and all donations are tax-deductible.
