Free Republic

In the seven years since the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s El Monte Fire Station crew first assembled its cache of large-animal rescue equipment, firefighters have employed it for jobs ranging from extracting a deer from a fence to helping an immobile horse with cancer access medical treatment. On Easter firefighters faced their most challenging animal rescue operation: liberating an upside-down, 900-pound Arabian mare from a drainage ditch. Firefighter engineer Jeff Brown and Capt. Matthew Maxson are among the El Monte Fire Station firefighters credited with helping to save the horse. The emergency call came at approximately 6:15 p.m. April...

Save HEREFORD — It was January 2010 when Horse’n Around Rescue Ranch and Foundation opened its doors on Single Star Ranch in Hereford. The nonprofit’s co-founders, Theresa Warrell and Steve Boice, opened the rescue after seeing a dire need to help neglected, abused and abandoned equines in southern Arizona. “At the time we started the rescue, we knew there was a need, but had no idea how great that need really was,” Warrell said. “To date, we have rescued 131 equines and adopted out 67.” On Sunday, Horse’n Around will be hosting an open house from 1 to 3 p.m....

ISLAMABAD: Even though US Secretary of State John Kerry succeeded in brokering a deal to resolve the deadlock over the Afghan presidential election run-off, confusion still persists about the proposal of forming a “government of national unity”. On July 12, Kerry announced the agreement in the presence of both rivals Dr Ashraf Ghani and Dr Abdullah Abdullah in Kabul. “The winner of the election will serve as the president and will immediately form a government of national unity,” said Kerry. However, the top US official failed to explain the composition of the unity government. Kerry’s vague proposal has caused uproar...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Kerry: Our Goal is Not Eliminating Iranian Nuclear CapabilityPosted By Daniel Greenfield On April 15, 2014 @ 7:30 pm In The Point | No Comments Sometimes a choice of words can be extremely revealing. That was the case with Kerry’s contentious testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.Under pressure, Kerry tends to slip and say revealing things. That was how the infamous, “for it and against it” clip was born. Kerry dismissed breakout as “just having one bomb’s worth, conceivably, of material, but without any necessary capacity to put it in anything,...

Tulsa man accused of taking toddler on drunken horse ride A Tulsa man who was once charged on an out-of-state child endangerment complaint was arrested by police Monday after he allegedly was seen riding a horse with a 3-year-old child while intoxicated. Dennis Carl Byers, 38, was booked into the Tulsa Jail on child neglect and public intoxication complaints, jail records show. Byers was spotted by Tulsa police about 8 p.m. Monday in the 2000 block of East 56th North on a horse with a small child, Byers' arrest report said. Officers who stopped Byers observed that he had blood...

In a legal dispute over a champion sporting stallion, Wisconsin's Court of Appeals decided it was a case of a horse — or two — apiece. But the Viroqua trainer on the losing end of the ruling doesn't see it that way. "It's been pretty frustrating," said Amy S. Hunter. "Basically it means I live in the wrong state. Anywhere there's some knowledge of the industry this would be different." Hunter, 43, trained a sick horse back to health and productivity for a wealthy out-of-state owner, who Hunter says was so grateful she told Hunter she could keep it. But...

'Mystery' Horse Impregnates Five Mares on Bourbon Farm CENTERVILLE — As bettors and the general public study equine bloodlines to prep for their possible Kentucky Derby wagers, Bourbon County horse owner Marilyn Montavon is trying to solve a mystery that could cost her thousands of dollars. On April 15, tax-filing deadline day, two new dependents showed up on her farm in the form of two foals — a colt born to the mare Goldie and a filly born to Mert. The babies were a surprise to Montavon because she has no studs on her farm, and she hadn't bred the...

LINCOLN, Neb. — The closing of the country’s last meat processing plant that slaughtered horses for human consumption was hailed as a victory for equine welfare. But five years later just as many American horses are destined for dinner plates to satisfy the still robust appetites for their meat in Europe and Asia. Now they are carved into tartare de cheval or basashi sashimi in Mexico and Canada. That shift is one of the many unintended consequences of a de facto federal ban on horse slaughter, according to a recent federal government study. As the domestic market for unwanted horses...

The sound of pounding hooves thunders in the high desert air. A cloud of dust marks the trail of a herd of wild horses as they race across the arid plain. This is Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue, a shelter for wild mustangs and unwanted horses near Lancaster, California. Lifesavers President Jill Starr says she and other shelter operators are witnessing an equine crisis. "People have lost their homes, their jobs, their hope," she said. "And they are giving up their animals." "We've had horses come onto the property in a horse trailer, unannounced, and just offloaded and [owners] ask us,...

Stem cells have been isolated successfully from the equine umbilical cord. Once collected, these cells (referred to as umbilical cord matrix cells) can then be preserved frozen, cultured, and differentiated into a host of cell lines, including bone, cartilage, fat, and those of the nervous system. Currently, stem cells are obtained from either fat or bone marrow of adult horses and are employed in equine medicine to treat traumatic and degenerative diseases such as bowed tendons, ligament injuries, osteoarthritis, and osteochondral defects (such as osteochondrosis or bone cysts). "Studies demonstrate that stem cells help tissues regenerate, rather than repair by...

World's smallest horse has tall order By JEFF DOUGLAS, Associated Press Writer Mon Mar 19, 9:31 PM ET ST. LOUIS - At just a hair over 17 inches tall, the miniature horse is more inclined to walk under fences than jump them. And her owners have sheltered the mare from ever gaining "circus-sideshow" or "one-trick-pony" status. As the world's smallest horse, 5-year-old Thumbelina, weighing in at 57 pounds, has a bigger mission: to raise $1 million for children's charities this year. ADVERTISEMENT Handler Michael Goessling, son of miniature horse farmers Kay and Paul Goessling, says Thumbelina is the ideal child...

As anyone who’s ever injured a knee or elbow will tell you, recovery can be a long and painful process. Cartilage is an exceptionally slow-healing tissue, and, until now, the missing or damaged tissue is often irreplaceable. Researchers at the University of Guelph are hoping stem cells might provide the needed tissue replacements. Biomedical sciences professor Dean Betts and doctoral candidate Thomas Koch are hoping to use stem cells to improve cartilage healing after joint injuries. They’re working with horses, where joint injuries are both common and costly, and say the research could be a model for helping human joint...

FORT HUACHUCA — Think the days of soldiers riding Army horses are limited to memorial units? You’d be wrong. “There are 2,500 Army horses serving today,” said Paul H. Scholtz, one of the directors of the U.S. Cavalry Association who also is the group’s chaplain. The days of using four-footed members of the equine class are still needed, especially as the United States continues its engagement in the war on terrorism, he said. While many of the Army-owned mounts are part of ceremonial units, some are being used in Afghanistan and other places in the world to carry soldiers to...

A sinus surgery lasted 21/2 hours. Four more were spent taking a bladder stone out of a show horse. Dean Richardson was still at a friend's equine hospital in Florida on May 20 as Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner, was saddled for the Preakness Stakes. Richardson wasn't going to miss the race. "He had blood all over him, and he was doing it in flip-flops, so we hosed him off," said Byron Reid, a veterinarian in Loxahatchee, Fla., just outside West Palm Beach. The two men watched the Preakness on a six-inch screen in the hospital. "You could see enough,"...

Calif. University Sued for $10 Million The parents of a Fresno State University equestrian team member who died after falling from a horse have filed a $10 million negligence claim against the school, saying their daughter was put at risk by the school's lack of coaches or supervision. In addition, the parents say they are "very concerned" about apparent discrepancies in university reports about their daughter's death. Shana Eriksson, 18, spent three days in a coma and then died last September after her horse spooked, whirled around and then fell on her during a trail ride with two teammates. The...

ATLANTA -- Health officials on alert for the return of West Nile virus are concerned about the re-emergence of another mosquito-borne disease in the Southeast: eastern equine encephalitis. A Georgia man died June 21 in the nation's first human case of the disease this year. "Eastern equine encephalitis has been an exceptionally infrequent disease," said Dr. Anthony Marfin of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "If you saw five or six (human) cases a year, that was a big year." But the virus kills up to 50 percent of people who catch it, compared with up to 15 percent...