Injured Horse -- No One Seems to Care

May 21, 2010

Approximately 19:25

Disclaimer: sorry for the video quality but all I had on me at the time was my G1 v1.6, which has video as an after thought.
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I decided this evening to come to Cherry Creek State Park's dog area. This area is situated on the southern end of the Cherry Creek State Park and holds within it a horse paddock, or stables. As my friend and I were completing our walk with our dogs our path took us up along the trail that parallels the western fence line of the horse paddock. I noticed, in the distance along the southern most fence line, a horse standing with it's rear facing the fence. When I saw this I realized the horse was in the same position, or very near it, when we arrived and parked in the southern parking lot off of Orchard and Parker roads.

I walked over to see if the horse was okay, hearing earlier in the day a rumor that one of the horses in the paddock was lame or injured and that the horse stable manager/owner was not properly taking care of the animal.

As soon as I got closer to the horse I saw a liquid streaming down it's right hand side rear leg. I thought at first the horse had urinated on itself and it was just dirt soaked urine coating it's leg. I nearly turned away when I saw an active drip dripping from above that location and I followed where the drip should have come from when I saw a gaping hole in the horse's inner thigh. The hole was about the size of a child's fist or a few inches long a couple of inches wide and deep enough that the thigh muscle was visible from a few feet away.




I immediately called my friend over to verify what I was seeing and then called a rancher friend of mine who suggested calling the stable owner/manager. I notified her that the stable manager doesn't have the best disposition especially when dealing with dog owners and informed her I wanted to use my cellphone's video camera to capture the situation as best I could. We hung up and I recorded the horse's leg as best I could with a small video camera. As I recorded the video, other horses from the paddock came over and the injured animal reacted by turning towards them and backing against the fence as though it were fearful of the other horses' attention while it's leg was injured. I was able to get more video as the injury turned towards the sun and more of the area was illuminated.

Afterwards I called the Arapaho County Sheriff's office which stated they were out for the weekend. I then called Aurora Police Dispatch and explained my location and the injury on the horse. The dispatcher then connected me to Arapaho County Sheriff's dispatch who took my statement and my contact information and said he would try and contact park officials to have a ranger come out and evaluate the animal or have the sheriff's office come out and record the incident.

I called my rancher friend back who advised me to call the Department of Wildlife and file a complaint and I took another video of the horse's leg. A few minutes later received a call from someone claiming he was with animal control. I informed him of the situation and he told me there was nothing he could do. I was dumbfounded. Animal Control couldn't or wouldn't even send out someone to evaluate the situation and call for additional assistance for large animal care? That no one was willing to do anything to help this injured and bleeding animal shocked me. I was watching this poor hurting animal as I was on the phone with this Animal Control gentleman trying to explain to him how the horse actively bleeding right in front of me and how it was streaming down his leg; how the horse could not bend his knee and how the horse was suffering and his response to me was: we deal with cats, dogs and small animals. He informed me that for large animals I had to call the Department of Agriculture's state veterinarian which probably wouldn't respond until Monday.



Could no one, no authoritative official come out and take a look at this animal? No police nor sheriff; no Animal Control nor park ranger; no one? Four levels of government oversight and no one was willing to take a look or take a statement?

At this time I noticed something else dripping from the horse's leg and couldn't quite place the liquid as it wasn't blood when my friend exclaimed it was puss. I took another closer look and it was puss -- puss that was dripping as thick streams of off-white ooze streaming down the horse's leg. I was trying to determine where the puss was coming from when I noticed what looked like a clean (and that it to say, as a knife or cutting instrument) cut in the horse's scrotum area.

The horse walked away and his limp could clearly be seen as he would not put any weight on the leg and could not bend his knee.



As we were leaving I drove over to the small structure at the horse stables hoping to find an emergency contact number or anything that indicated what to do should one of the horses be injured or get loose. There was nothing posted so I called the number on the Trail Rides sign off of Parker Road. I left a message at that number explaining the situation with the horse and hoping they would check the message before Monday citing that I had picture and video evidence and that I would be forwarding that evidence to the state park, to the Colorado Department of Agriculture state veterinarian, the Department of Wildlife and possibly to PETA.





Notable Contacts to voice complaint:

Cherry Creek State Park

Horse Stable Owner (Bill?): 303 690 8235
720 298 1202 is the number he called me from.

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Update 1:

et al for those of you paying attention, after receiving little to no response yesterday, I sent an email to Colorado Department of Agriculture animal investigations group, copying the state senator and house member who cover this area, as well as the state park's regional director and the senior ranger on the park. I also alerted PETA.

Within 20 minutes of notifying PETA they called me and asked me to call the police yet again but this time to request a call back once the officer has evaluated the situation. As it happens,the county sheriff's office called the on duty ranger for Cherry Creek State Park who took more than an hour to get back with me regarding the horse. He hadn't been out to the stables yet, but he did explain that some of the horses at the stables were diseased which shocked me, but I explained the horse in question had a gaping hole in his leg not a sickness I could witness. I then explained to him what the horse looked like (brown and white, painted?) and where it was last seen by me (in the most south west paddock). He said he'd call the stable owner/manager (Bill, I think his name was) and ask him to meet him down there.

I never heard back from the ranger (which I will follow up with tomorrow), but I did receive a call from the stable owner/manager. He asked me why I reported it to the rangers and I explained that the horse was hurt, actively bleeding and some sort of puss streaming down his leg. He told me I didn't know what I was talking about as the horse had been cared for. I disagreed citing there was no evidence of the leg being wrapped or sutured, of any medicine having been applied and you can clearly see the muscle through the hole in the skin. He then told me if I pursued this further he would have a lawyer come after me. I really wish I could have recorded the conversation as he was not friendly in the least bit.

I am extremely glad I took photos and video of the horse's condition as I have a feeling this man (Bill) will try and remove the horse from the stables and take it where the state officials cannot find it easily.

I'll update again with a list of the people I sent the email to earlier today.