THE SAG HARBOR EXPRESS
ISSUE DATE: 6/30/05 June 2005Horses Find a Rescuer Here
by Beth Young
Among the horse set in the Hamptons, there's little talk or thought about what happens to horses when they are deemed unfit for their role in our lives. From racehorses who don't perform up to exact standards to horses whose medical bills may outweigh the love of their owners, unwanted horses are a real problem.
The sale of horse meat for human consumption is illegal in the United States, but three foreign-owned slaughterhouses operate here (two are in Texas, one is in Illinois) and ship the meat overseas, where it can sell for as much as $15 a pound.
Christine Barrett-Distefano, who opened the Amaryllis Farm Equine Rescue on Merchant's Path in Sagaponack on June 1, says she's the last person standing between the horse and the slaughterhouse.
At 2 a.m. Sunday morning, she greeted a shipment of four horses from Washington who had been on their way to the slaughterhouse. Two were thoroughbreds, one was a three-year-old white mare, and another was her foal.
Distefano, 38, grew up in Southampton, and she spent her entire childhood dreaming about horses. She got her first job leading a pony around a pen at Sears Bellows park when she was eight years old, and has worked at nearly every stable on the South Fork.
Then, Christine's horse Rascal died at the age of 32 and she decided that just working with horses wasn't enough. She wanted to devote herself to caring for horses that other people might have forgotten.
In its first month of operation, Amaryllis Horse Rescue has received eight horses, one pony and a three month old foal, which are boarded on a seven-and-a-half acre property Distefano is leasing on Merchant's Path.
"I wanted to do this since I was five - well, I wanted 40 acres," she chuckled as she looked out at her new charges, the mare and foal, who were huddled together in fright in the center of one pasture.
"Every time there's a good hoof and mouth disease scare in France, the price of horse meat here goes up," she said. Prices here are around 60 cents a pound.
Distefano said that the USDA had admitted that 92.3 percent of horses on their way to slaughter were "young, fit and healthy," and where they come from is as much of a surprise.
Thirty thousand to 40,000 horses are reported stolen annually in this country and 60,000 horses are killed for human consumption here every year. Most of the ones that are stolen are not recovered and chances are, they're on their way to the slaughterhouse.
Distefano said that alerts are posted on the internet when horses go missing and that once she'd read one in which a 13-year-old girl reported her five-year-old horse missing, and had to identify the horse by its hide at an Illinois slaughterhouse
Distefano had been working in real estate and teaching yoga at local gyms, but now, at 38 years old, she doesn't care what anybody thinks - she plans to throw her whole heart and every red cent she has into rescuing horses.
She has just filed the paperwork to become a 501c3 non-profit corporation, and hopes to offset the cost of rescuing horses (she has to pay for the horses, shipping, and medical expenses, not to mention boarding and feeding them) by teaching lessons and bringing her mild-mannered pony to parties. She hopes, once many of her horses are trained and taught to trust people, to find permanent homes for them without charging a small fortune.
"If you don't have $20,000" to spend on a horse, she said, "you can't even start looking."
Distefano hopes trainers can find more affordable horses for their clients at her farm, but many of them are still unaccustomed to being loved or cared for and need extensive training in order to trust people.
Distefano's training crew is an eclectic group - she has a rodeo rider who's used to riding bulls if she encounters a particularly unwieldily horse, an event rider and a steeplechase jockey. They all come to be around horses and put the time in riding, but Distefano does most of the work running the farm (she can't even afford anyone to muck the stalls) herself.
The first horse to arrive at Amaryllis Horse Rescue five weeks ago was three-year-old Elijah, a horse who bears an uncanny resemblance to Distefano's old horse. The difference, though, was that Elijah had never been touched in his whole life.
He had wolf teeth, his feet had never been clipped, he hadn't been gelded. He couldn't move, all he could do was pivot, because he'd spent so much time in a tiny pen.
"The first time I turned him out, he didn't know what grass was," she said. "It took two-and-a-half weeks before he would eat a carrot. Then he saw my pony schnarfing down carrots."
Elijah came over to her from across his stall, nuzzling, looking for love.
"He doesn't have his good looks for nothing," she said. "He comes from some of the best bloodlines there are."
Distefano said there is only one other local horse rescue, in Manorville, which takes horses after they are no longer able to compete at the race track. The difference between that and her rescue is that she's the last person standing between the horses and the slaughterhouse.
Distefano hopes that a new bill in Congress stopping slaughter of horses for human consumption for one year will be extended forever if people become more aware of where horses actually go.
"Who eats horses? We don't eat horses here," she said. "I hope it will end for good."
In the meantime, the horses here are looking for sponsors to assume some of the cost of their medications, boarding, and, most importantly, their carrot supply.
"Horses don't care about rent, feed and overhead, but they do care about carrots," said Distefano.
The Amaryllis Farm Equine Rescue can be reached at 537-7335.