Horse Auctions - Response to Lif

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

Susan Clare Vuturo needtoride@yahoo.com
Lif, I appreciate your response to my post.  I'd like to respond
to your comments.  KARE has attempted to take a camera into the
auction to get documentation of the abuse, and the cameras were
taken away from us.  We have even tried to send people they don't
know to get pictures -- all to no avail.  Cameras were taken away
and returned without film when we left.  I personally have tried
to contact all three local news channels to see if they would be
interested in doing an undercover expose of this situation -- 
none have returned my letters or calls.  I can only assume that
since this is the home of Churchill Downs, this will not be 
brought to the public's attention.  Remember -- this auction is 
the place where LOTS of used-up Thoroughbreds are dumped.

KARE has saved approximately 40 horses in the 3 years we have 
been in operation.  We do not rescue ONLY horses that can be
put back into use.  Two of our rescues were old horses in VERY
BAD shape that we immediately had euthanized when we got them
home.  We depend entirely on donations and gifts from caring
people.  No, we cannot rescue all of the horses.  But we believe
that even the few that we can rescue does mean a lot to those
horses which ARE rescued.  Believe me, it gets tremendously
demoralizing, emotionally, to go back time after time and see
all the abuse continuing.  We do what we can, and will continue
to attempt to bring this to the community's attention.

No, hitting animals with barbed wire canes is not LEGAL.  However
why do you naively believe these auction houses operate legally?
At one auction, a stallion was seen with his head secured tightly
in a cattle stanchion so the attending vet could draw blood for
a coggins test (oh yes, they do that because it's required by 
law).  This poor terrified, angry stallion was screaming so
loudly, it could probably have been heard in the next county. 
He probably severly damaged his neck in the process of struggling.  Is that legal?  Maybe so, but I don't think it's
moral.
legal?  I doubt it, but it WAS done!!