Adopted horses show improvement
The Daily Mail
May 4, 2009, online

GREENVILLE - Nancy Caldwell was not actively looking to purchase a second horse when she learned about the malnourished horses housed at Center Brook Farm in Climax. She called her boyfriend, she said, and they discussed adopting a horse from the Columbia-Greene Humane Society/SPCEA.

“It clicked,” she said.

On April 28, Caldwell brought Running Witch, a 10-year-old dark bay mare, to her stable a few hours away.

Running Witch is one of more than 50 horses from the Center Brook Farm that the CGHS/SPCA has adopted out to new owners.

The CGHS/SPCA was awarded custody of 67 of the 177 horses at the farm when it was raided by state police investigators and animal control officers April 3.

Ernie Paragallo, 51, of Massapequa, the farm’s owner, was arrested April 10 and charged with 22 counts of animal cruelty. He is expected to appear before Justice Thomas Fori in Coxsackie Town Court May 18.

CGHS/SPCA staff said they are hopeful that the rest of the horses will be adopted over the next week or two.

“They have done a complete 180,” CGHS/SPCA President Ron Perez said. “They’re doing much, much better.”

Caldwell said Running Witch ate an entire bale of hay her first night in her new home. Since then, Caldwell has monitored how much food the horse is given to eat.

Caldwell said the horse is still very thin and has skin problems but has no active parasites. And, after a lot of grooming, Running Witch’s mangy hair has begun falling out, she said.

Running Witch has adjusted well and can be lead around and blanketed, Caldwell said, adding that the horse has shown her calm and affectionate personality.

“She really hugs you,” she said.

Susan Kayne, breeder and owner of the Unbridled Racing Stable, in Greenville, said Friday the three horses she adopted from the farm have also shown improvements in health and spirits.

The horses she adopted- Fine Behind, Queen Burger and Lily of The Day - and others on the farm, had parasites and had not been wormed.

Kayne said her three horses had worn halters for too long and had bug infestations in their ears. Their hooves were cracked and their soles were bruised as a result of receiving poor or no hoof care, she said.

“Hoof cracks, rings and bruising are signs of extreme stress on the animal,” she wrote in a subsequent e-mail.

She said Friday her new horses were very timid when she first brought them to her stable earlier in the week.

The animals would walk away from her when she approached them.

Fine Behind, a horse she said Paragallo bought as a weanling for $80,000, was missing hair from lice and rain rot. Lily of The Day would not raise her head.

“They were generally depressed,” she said.

But, she said, the horses were eager eaters.

“They just opened their mouths as wide as they could to bite the food,” she said.

Kayne will allow one of her new horses to go out into a field with two of her other eight horses so they can get some individual attention but still feel protected, she said.

“They come out with a real spring in their step,” she said, noting that Queen Burger has rebounded the quickest of the three.

Kayne, who has worked with Paragallo to breed horses, said Paragallo used to visit the farm frequently and she could not believe he had not visited his farm in months as he has claimed.

Kayne said the horses remaining at Center Brook Farm looked much better in late April than they did when the CGHS/SPCA first stepped in. The farm looked better, too, she said, adding that CGHS/SPCA staff had done a commendable job turning things around.

“It looks like a completely different place,” she said, “it is hard work to manage that many horses.”