I am so upset that I had nightmares last night about yesterday's events. My friend and neighbor brought her two horses, Bella, who has been here before, and Rosie, who was with Bella at another stable, back to Chiron's Grove. They had been gone since last summer, when my friend brought them to her house so that Bella could be there when she foaled. Subsequently, she moved Bella and Rosie over to another stable. 

Here's what happened. 

My friend and I walked up to the end of the driveway to lead the horses down from the trailer. The stable owner and her mother were parking up there as we walked up. They opened the back of the trailer and the door flew open. We could see the two blanketed horse's rears. The stable owner walked up to the front of the trailer and undid the lead ropes (both of them!) and then backed Bella out. Bella knows how to back out of a trailer, so she did fine. Then Bella swung around and faced me, and my jaw fell open. She was gaunt and glassy-eyed.  

I gasped. "She's awfully skinny," I said in an undertone to my friend. 

Just then Rosie, who is a big black 3-year-old Percheron, tried to turn around in the trailer and half backed, half fell as she tried to get out. She slipped, reared right up over my head, and started to flail as I jumped out of the way. Her body suddenly came slamming down right where I had been standing. "How did she get loose?" I snapped, now twice annoyed. Nobody said anything, but clearly the stable owner had untied both horses and then left Rosie unattended in the trailer while she backed Bella out.  

Fortunately, Rosie seems to be okay. "Seems" is an important word because horses are delicate and can crash later if their stomachs get twisted after a fall like that. I'm happy to say that we have seen no problems so far.  

My friend and I led the horses down the driveway, and I said, "I'm really surprised by how Bella looks. Look at her neck! She has no fat deposits along the top of it." My friend said she wanted to take their blankets off and having a look at them, but her daughter was at home sick so she couldn't stay. She saw them settled and happy in the paddock with the other horses, but then she had to leave.

 

I went into the house for my camera. I kept thinking about how very skinny Bella looked, but it was scary to go out there and remove her blanket. I knew it would be bad. Finally I had worked up my nerve and went back outside. 

Camera in hand, Elizabeth and I started unbucking the blankets. When we removed Bella's we both gasped. What we saw is in the next post. And from then on, the day was a blur. First, Bella and Rosie obviously needed food. They drank about ten gallons of water between them. Then we brought Bella (who was in the worst condition, though both horses look terrible) in and gave her some grain. Both are now on a diet of lots of grain & hay, with grain every six hours and hay around the clock.  

And I called the stable owner. I'll spare you the details of the conversation, but in the end I went to her barn and inspected every horse on the property, taking off many of their blankets and checking that they had clean water. All of them look a bit underweight, but none look as bad as Bella or Rosie. Bella and Rosie have good reason to be thinner, though. Bella just finished nursing a foal, and Rosie is huge and requires more food than most horses.  

The stable owner has so far not taken responsibility for what happened. She has many excuses, none of them convincing. She has not offered to give my friend her money back. My friend reported her to the police and I am waiting for them to come here to see Bella and Rosie. My friends have also notified reporter friends of theirs.