• Seven thoroughbred horses killed in fire at Florida polo club

    By Azhar Fateh and Gil Aegerter, NBC News

    Seven thoroughbred horses were killed Saturday when a fire roared through a barn at the Gulfstream Polo Club in Florida, a fire official said.


    The barn was fully involved with flames when firefighters arrived shortly after noon, Capt. Albert Borroto of Palm Beach County Fire Rescue said in a statement. Seven thoroughbreds were killed and four were being treated for burns.

    Fire Rescue Capt. Michael Bergeron told NBC 6 in Miami that the barn was 70 to 80 feet long.

    “Not one inch of the barn was not totally engulfed in flames when I got there. The flames were 10 feet above the roof,” the polo club’s president, Randy Aversano, told The Palm Beach Post.

    Investigators concluded that the fire was caused by an electrical fault in a tack room used as a kitchen, Borroto said.

    No other structures were involved.

    The club is in Lake Worth, south of Palm Beach.

  • Horse slaughtering legal in US, but public won't bite

    By Daniel Arkin, Staff Writer, NBC News

    The discovery of horse DNA in food products sold throughout Europe has set off a scandal, shaking confidence in Europe's food industry and angering consumers.

    But believe it or not, it’s actually legal to slaughter horses for human consumption in the U.S. In November 2011, Congress quietly lifted a five-year ban on funding for horse processing inspections.

    Since the ban was lifted, no horse slaughterhouses have successfully opened, according to Holly Hazard, a senior vice president at the Humane Society of the United States who tracks equine rights issues.

    “We have yet to have a new [horse processing] facility open in this country,” Hazard said, adding that attempts to open slaughterhouses in New Mexico and Missouri last year were scrapped due to public outrage.

    Related: 'Criminal conspiracy' blamed for European horse-in-burger scandal

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said that if a horse slaughtering plant were to open, the agency would perform inspections to ensure it complied with federal laws.

    Before Congress defunded inspections in 2007, there were just three equine processing plants in the continental U.S. -- two in Texas, one in Illinois. All three facilities were shuttered when the slaughtering ban took effect, the Associated Press reported.

    At the peak of their production powers, these slaughterhouses primarily exported horsemeat to Mexico and Canada for human consumption, Hazard said. 

    One advocate of selling horse meat said that the removal of the ban allows the horse processing industry to regain a foothold in the market.

    "Eighty percent of a $102 billion-a-year industry was directly affected when they took slaughter away," said David Duquette, president of the United Horsemen, a group that lobbied to lift the ban. 

    Duquette added that there are ongoing efforts to revive the horse meat processing industry, but declined to provide additional information about those attempts.

    Animal rights activists, meanwhile, are confident that widespread repulsion at the thought of eating horse meat will keep it out of the mainstream.

    "There are certainly communities that have considered [reviving horse slaughtering]," said Nancy Perry, a senior vice president at the ASPCA. But the vast majority of Americans -- a staggering 80 percent, according to a recent ASPCA poll -- oppose the practice, Perry said.

    'Companions and partners, not food'
    Polling data and public opinion suggest it's highly unlikely horse meat will move to the center of American culinary culture. After all, they’re the stars of beloved children’s literature, Hollywood movies, and Wild West folklore.

    “We believe horses are iconic figures in American culture,” Hazard said. “The vast majority of Americans think they’re companions and partners, not food.”

    Hazard said she’s not aware of any attempts to introduce horse meat on restaurant menus. The one exception: a proposal, in September of last year, to serve Canadian-bred horse tartare -- also known as raw horse meat -- at a museum restaurant in New York City.

    However, M. Wells Dinette's prospective menu item at MoMA PS1 was scuttled after animal rights activists and public health officials cried foul.

    The restaurant’s chef and co-owner, Hugue Dufour, released a statement after the controversy subsided defending his exotic dish.

    “We thought about serving it because we like to offer customers new things,” the statement said. “Whatever else horses are – draft animals, companions, transport – their meat is also delicious and affordable.”

    Nevertheless, most Americans still consider horse meat off-limits, although that hasn't always been the case.

    At the close of World War II, when beef was in short supply, many Americans got their protein boosts from horse meat. Republicans blamed the meat scarcity on President Truman, giving him the nickname “Horsemeat Harry.”

    During the early 1970s, beef prices went through the roof, forcing cash-strapped shoppers to buy cheap horse meat instead. The custom was so common it showed up as a subplot on a 1973 episode of the sitcom “All in the Family.”

    Harvard University’s Faculty Club reportedly served horse meat for more than 100 years before it dropped the menu item in the 1980s.

    Related:

    'Fraud on a massive scale': Europe's horse meat scandal keeps on growing

  • Overnight fire kills at least 11 horses in Texas stable

    Glen E. Ellman / Fort Worth FD via NBCDFW

    Fort Worth, Texas, firefighters managed to rescue eight horses, but 11 died in the fire Monday, Feb. 4.

    By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News

    Flames roared through a large stable in Fort Worth, Texas, early Monday, killing at least 11 horses, authorities said.


    Fort Worth fire officials said in a statement that eight horses were rescued before the fire spread to other parts of the three-building stable complex but that one of them wasn't expected to survive.

    Dozens of firefighters responded to the fire in the 3000 block of NW 30th Street, which was reported about 2:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. ET), The Dallas Morning News reported. The cause couldn't immediately be determined, fire officials said.

    Bobby Tatum, a Fort Worth fire division chief, told NBC 5 of Dallas that firefighters had difficulty getting access to the building. The first crew on the scene had to run hoses about 200 feet to reach the buildings, while wind gusts of up to 20 mph also created problems, he said.

    NBCDFW: Eleven horses die in overnight stable fire

    One firefighter was treated at the scene for burns to his hands, authorities said.

    Two of the buildings were destroyed, and the third was severely damaged.

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  • Escaped horses cause traffic pileup: 'It's Oklahoma, what do you expect?'

    KFOR

    The miniature colt was recaptured early on, but his mother escaped a second time in Oklahoma City on Friday.

    By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News

    Two miniature horses led motorists, state troopers and animal welfare officers on a merry chase in Oklahoma City for several hours Friday, causing a traffic accident that injured a woman, officials said.


    "It's Oklahoma, what do you expect?" Jeannie Troxel, a motorist who stopped to help corral the horses, told NBC station KFOR of Oklahoma City.

    The horses — a light brown mare and her colt — broke loose from their field and were first spotted about 4 a.m. (5 a.m. ET), eventually ending up on Interstate 40. The posse of state troopers, animal welfare officers and passing motorists managed to corral the colt, but the mare got loose a second time.

    KFOR

    The horses were back in their field in Oklahoma on Friday — eight hours and one wreck later.

    "We almost hit the horse," said Troxel, who drove past the scene about 7 a.m. "All you could do is — 'Oh, my God.'" 

    A white truck whose driver had spotted the excitement ran off the road and into a tree, state Trooper Betsy Randolph told The Oklahoman newspaper. The woman's condition wasn't immediately available. 

    Officials said the horses were finally rounded up shortly after noon local time. Animal welfare officials told KFOR that the owners, who haven't been identified, were cited with violations.

    "We've been running on foot back and forth, so it's been quite eventful," Troxel told KFOR.

    Related links:

  • 'Like a puppy mill': Dozens of emaciated horses rescued from Washington farm

    By NBC News staff and wire services

    SEATTLE -- Animal control officers seized 39 emaciated and sickly horses from inhumane conditions in dark stalls filled with feces on a breeding farm outside of Tacoma on Wednesday, authorities said.


    U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents discovered the malnourished animals, many injured and some standing in more than a foot of waste, while serving drug-related warrants on Tuesday at the 99-acre property in Graham, Washington, Pierce County Animal Control supervisor Brian Boman told Reuters.

    Animal control officers and sheriff's deputies from Pierce and Kitsap counties returned to the ranch a day later to seize the animals and found many were highly skittish because they had been "stall-bound" in three dark barns, Boman said.

    "It was like a puppy mill, only with horses," Boman told Reuters. "The conditions are terrible. There's no telling how long it's been since they've seen daylight."

    Read the story on NBC's KING5.com

    Pierce County auditor Julie Anderson told NBC station KING 5 in Seattle that the horses had not been handled in a very long time. "They literally have their 'night eyes' on so they're very sun sensitive and are having trouble with depth perception," she said, describing the scene as "wanton criminal neglect."

    The horses were receiving veterinary care and were being held for the time being as evidence, KING 5 reported.

    No-one has been arrested so far but the owners could face charges of animal cruelty in the second degree, a gross misdemeanor in the state of Washington.

    Watch US News videos on NBCNews.com

    KING 5 reported that an attorney for the owner said his client "loves these animals" and did not believe the conditions reached a criminal level.

    'No lighting or ventilation'
    Authorities spent more than nine hours rounding up the horses, which included mostly purebred Arabians as well as Belgian Draft horses and Clydesdales, to take them to nearby fairgrounds. None were race horses.

    Some likely would be euthanized, Boman said.

    A Pierce County Sheriff's Office news release, describing the roundup as the largest horse seizure the county had ever undertaken, cited the horses' living conditions as deplorable.

    "Most of the horses were in barns that had large amounts of urine and feces in the stalls," the release said. "Some of the barns had no lighting or ventilation and the smell of ammonia was very strong."

    Because federal and county criminal investigations are ongoing, federal authorities would not immediately release the name of the farm's owner, said Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle.

    NBC News staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Horse trainer Jackie McConnell fined for caustic chemical cruelty

    Jake Daniels / AP

    Keith Dane, center, representative for the Humane Society of the United States, and Joe Tydings, right, a former senator from Maryland who authored the original Horse Protection Act in 1970, speak to the media on the steps of the federal courthouse, Tuesday.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    NASHVILLE, Tennessee -- Former Tennessee walking horse hall of fame trainer Jackie McConnell was fined $75,000 and sentenced to three years’ probation in federal court on Tuesday for using a banned and abusive practice on show horses that involving putting caustic chemicals on their ankles.

    McConnell faced 52 counts of transporting and showing abused horses and had pleaded guilty in May to a single charge of animal cruelty in an agreement with prosecutors that called for probation and a fine.

    U.S. District Judge Harry Mattice Jr. accepted McConnell's plea, imposing the fine, which could have been up to $250,000, and probation at a federal court hearing in Chattanooga on Tuesday. McConnell faced up to five years in prison if the agreement had not been accepted.

    McConnell was required by the court to write a letter about the soring of horses, the pain it causes and the long-term effects, The Chattanoogan said. He was also asked to say how widespread soring is in the letter.

    McConnell was banned for life from the Tennessee Walking Horse organization's biggest event and stricken from its hall of fame along with written and photographic mentions after ABC News showed the video in May of him abusing horses.


    Secretly filmed
    The federal charges stemmed from a banned practice called "soring" in which the front legs of walking horses, known for their high-stepping gait or “big lick,” are slathered with caustic chemicals to induce pain that causes them to kick even higher.

    An animal rights activist working undercover in a horse barn secretly recorded McConnell and some colleagues abusing horses in March and April 2011. The video was used as a basis for the prosecution.

    The video showed horses being beaten with wooden sticks and poked with electric cattle prods. The horses' ankles were covered with caustic chemicals and then wrapped with plastic to increase their pain.

    Keith Dane, director of equine protection for the Humane Society of the United States, said he wanted a tougher sentence but that McConnell's case still would send a message that soring would not be tolerated.

    "It was our hope that McConnell would do prison time for these terrible crimes but there are gaps in the federal law that need to be strengthened," Dane said.

    On its website, the Human Society said a federal bill had been been introduced by Representatives Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican, and Steve Cohen, a Democract from Tennessee, that would amend the Horse Protection Act "to end the failed system of industry self-policing, ban the use of certain devices, strengthen penalties, and make other needed reforms to finally end this torture."

    YouTube/Humane Society of United States

    NOTE: Contains graphic footage. A video made by the Humane Society of the United States after an undercover investigation into the walking horse industry, posted to YouTube.

    Dane told The Chattanoogan that McConnell "has shown no remorse. For decades his income was based on the torture of horses."

    Former Senator Joseph Tydings, the sponsor of the Horse Protection Act in 1970, told the paper that horse owners in Tennessee and Kentucky had for decades "tortured horses by altering them with a phony gait that is based on violent cruelty to the horses. In Tennessee, the officials have known what is going on, but they have done nothing about this ‘big lick.’”

    "It's been about the culture, the money, the celebration. They don't give a d*** about the poor horses,” he added.

    Two other men pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges in the case and were sentenced to probation as well.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Arabian show horse rescued after swimming three miles into the ocean

    Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol

    A search and rescue team save William, a 7-year-old Arabian show horse, after he swam nearly three miles into the ocean.

    By Isolde Raftery, msnbc.com

    As the sun set over Loon Point near Santa Barbara on Tuesday evening, waves crashed onto the sand, apparently spooking an Arabian show horse named William.


    William, a 7-year-old grey stallion, had been part of a photo shoot with other horses. Frightened, he bolted into the surf.

    He started to swim. And swim. And swim until he was nearly three miles offshore, headed for oil rigs.

    On land, a team of four from the Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol, Carpenteria-Summerland Fire Water Rescue, and California State Parks set out to find the horse, whose official name is Air of Temptation. His owner, Mindy Peters, told Huffington Post that he had never been swimming in his life.

    RAW VIDEO: William, an Arabian show horse whose official name is Air of Temptation, bolted into the surf Tuesday evening, swimming three miles offshore. A team of four search-and-rescuers saved him, slowly swimming him back to shore. 

    "Horses can swim, but not well,” she told HuffPo. Peters was driving when she learned about her sea horse and immediately bee-lined to the beach. She said William is worth about $100,000 to $150,000.

    Ryan Kelly, a Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol Officer, was the first on site, heading out with a small motorboat. Overhead, a helicopter searched as well.

    As the sun set further, the team worried they were losing light. But after a half hour search, they saw a nose and part of a face peaking above the water.

    “It was a real needle-in-a-haystack kind of find,” Kelly told msnbc.com. “He looked like every other bird that was just sitting on the water.”

    William was drifting with the current but still heading out to sea. When he saw the search and rescue team, he appeared startled but also exhausted.

    They corralled the horse and used boathook to grab his reins. They made a makeshift harness to slip under his saddle and tie to the side of the rescue boat. They wanted to keep him buoyant so he wouldn’t sink and drown from exhaustion.  

    The return took two hours, because the horse moved at about a mile an hour. It was also occasionally scary for the rescue team.

    “Some of the grunts and noises he was making along the way -- we weren’t sure how he was doing,” Kelly said. “We weren’t sure if he had other problems. He was making noise, thrashing around and other times he’d be completely still.”

    One of the firefighters held his head above water and reassured him, Kelly said.

    “It’s going to be all right,” the firefighter said, according to Kelly, petting the horse's head.  

    Once they hit the beach, the rescue team handed William off to a crew on paddle boats.

    Waiting for William was a veterinarian who guided him to a trailer. William is now recuperating.

    Peters, who has owned William for a little over a year, told HuffPo that her family was “scared to death we were going to lose him, that he was going to drown.”

    “He is absolutely part of our family,” she said.

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  • City's finance chief accused of looting $30 million; lifestyle included $2.1 million motorhome

    American Quarter Horse Association

    Rita Crundwell is seen with one of her horses at an American Quarter Horse Association event.

    By Miguel Llanos, NBC News

    The chief financial officer of a small Illinois city -- a woman who had a lavish lifestyle that included a $2.1 million motor home and a horse farm -- is under arrest, accused of embezzling $30 million from the city.

    Rita Crundwell, 58, was arrested Tuesday at City Hall in Dixon, Ill., the Chicago Tribune reported, and later charged with wire fraud.

    Paid a salary of $80,000 a year, Crundwell spent large sums to operate her 150-horse Meri-J Ranch, as well as $340,000 on jewelry and $2.1 million on a luxury motor home, the FBI alleges in its criminal complaint.

    "I guess people assumed she was making a ton of money in the horse business," the Tribune quoted Dixon Mayor James Burke as saying about her apparent wealth.

    Burke went to the FBI after an employee covering for Crundwell while she was away discovered an unusual bank account with multiple six-figure transactions. The account was in the city's name but included "RSCDA" as a co-account holder, and that turned out to be Crundwell, the FBI said. Funds from the account had been withdrawn over time.

    Purchases allegedly made by Crundwell with city funds include a $146,000 Kenworth truck, a $140,000 Freightliner truck, a $57,000 Chevy Silverado pickup and a $259,000 horse trailer.

    Dixon, a city of 15,000 and boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan, has an annual budget of less than $9 million a year. The city has had budget cuts over the years, Burke said, but Crundwell argued some of the financial shortfalls were due to funds owed by the state.


    Burke said Crundwell had worked for the city since she was a teenager and was appointed comptroller in the early 1980s.

    The FBI didn't know how the $30 million compares to past cases of public embezzlement.

    "We don’t keep official records or rankings of such things," FBI spokesman Royden Rice told msnbc.com. "Suffice it to say, according to the complaint, this was a very large fraud considering the size of Dixon."

    Burke on Wednesday issued a statement trying to make sense of how so much money could have been embezzled.

    "We realize the main question is how can someone allegedly steal 30 million dollars and get away with it for so long?" he said, and then explained that two accounting firms prepare an annual audit, while the state also reviews city documents. None ever cited "red flags," Burke said.

    He added that the city will try to claim some of Crundwell's assets and it "will be interviewing and retaining a new certified public accounting firm to conduct the annual city audit."

    As for Crundwell, her Meri-J Ranch says on its website that horses bred by her have won 52 world championships.

    Crundwell is well known on the horse circuit, having appeared at countless shows.

    Several YouTube videos by the American Quarter Horse Association relate her success raising and showing horses, and already on Wednesday some viewers were voicing their anger.

    "Rita Crundwell should be banished from all (record) books and be forced to give back all trophies and of course these is no money to give back but she should be banished from all records," wrote one YouTube viewer. "The reserve winners should get their rightful earnings and trophies."

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  • Teen girl saves 25 horses from stable fire

    "My adrenaline was so high at the time," says Madison Wallraf, 15, who repeatedly ran into a burning barn to save 25 of her horses. WMAQ-TV's Natalie Martinez reports.

    By NBCChicago.com

    More than two dozen horses are alive thanks in part to the efforts of a courageous 15-year-old who sprang into action when she saw flames in the stables.


    "I started off by just putting their halters on and pulling them out by twos, but then the fire started getting quicker so I just started wrapping their ropes around their necks and just tying them around my arms and pulling them out," Madison Wallraf recalled.

    The Wednesday evening fire at the M&R Overlook Farms in suburban McHenry, Ill., raged for about two hours. With no hydrants, water had to be trucked in to fight the blaze that consumed the 25,000 square-foot metal barn.

    For more, visit NBCChicago.com

    Wallraf described how she crawled through the aisle to rescue the frantic horses as flames flanked her and smoke filled the space to about three feet off the floor.

    "I got kicked in the shoulder by one of the horses in there and I got knocked down a few times, but my adrenaline was so high at the time that it didn't phase me," said the 4-foot, 10-inch teen, who estimates she saved 25 horses.

    Wallraf and Shannon Weitzman, 21, who also went into the burning barn to save horses, were treated for smoke inhalation.

    Ultimately, at least 16 horses died. Three more escaped. It's hoped the horses will return.

    "We know they're out in the woods, we just don't know where," said McHenry Township Fire District Chief Tony Huemann.

    The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

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  • Police say trainer was selling horses to slaughterhouse

    By NBCPhiladelphia.com

    A local horse trainer is facing felony charges after she allegedly sold as many as 120 horses to buyers for a Canadian slaughterhouse, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Harrisburg Bureau.

    State police say that 24-year-old Chester County-native Kelsey Lefever -- a well-known horse trainer and former Devon Horse Show competitor -- promised owners she could find good homes for their horses when they could no longer race, according to the paper.

    What she really found for these horses, was a quick death, police say.

    For more, visit NBCPhiladelphia.com

    They say Lefever was selling the horses she was in charge of finding homes for to contractors for a Canadian slaughterhouse. There, they would be butchered and sent overseas to be sold as food, the Inquirer reports.

    Lefever admits to selling as many as 120 horses, according to the paper. Rescue groups that go to a weekly auction and purchase horses that might otherwise be sold for slaughter say Lefever was making about $300 a horse from the kill buyers.

    A hearing is set for the beginning of February.