Marysville's horse farm saddled with worry

MARYSVILLE — Tagranee was a stakes racehorse until a jockey's whip left him blind in one eye. Sparky has a heart murmur so severe that a gallop around the pasture could kill him. Cece had such extreme hoof problems that, when she first arrived, she could hardly walk.

For years, Marysville's Equine Rescue Association has gotten along on a shoestring budget, rescuing sick, lame, blind and unwanted horses. In the course of helping the animals, it's saved a few teens, too — teens assigned to do volunteer work by Marysville's municipal court after getting in trouble with the law.

But now the little farm is in need of a rescue itself. Already battered by soaring feed costs, rising vet bills and shrinking donations, the association faced a new obstacle when its founder, Vel Moore, 76, broke her leg this month.

For now, volunteers have stepped in to keep the farm running and care for the 31 horses. But no one knows how to fill Moore's role as leader and office manager, the person who knows which bills can be put off, which need to be paid right away and which donors can be counted on when the checking account is almost empty.

"I'm the one who goes in the cubby holes and finds the money," said Moore, now using a wheelchair and living in a nursing home four miles away.

And, she said, "I'm broke."

The worsening economy has exacerbated an already vexing problem: What to do with aging, sick horses. Keeping a horse costs hundreds of dollars a month, and vet bills can make costs skyrocket. There's been a steady uptick in the number of people trying to find a way out of horse ownership because they can't afford the upkeep anymore.

"I get calls every week, sometimes from people who are weeping on the phone," Moore said.

Equine Rescue Association has been around since 1997, ever since Moore moved to Snohomish County from California, where she taught recreation and leisure-studies courses in college. After Moore arrived in Snohomish County, she began a rescue operation and eventually assembled a group of volunteers. The rescue operation moved to its present site when the Marysville School District offered property near Marysville-Pilchuck High School for a token rent.

"Most of these are horses that couldn't be adopted," said Suzette Acey, vice president of the organization. "So many have medical problems."

The farm needs money, but it especially needs volunteers, which are always in shorter supply in the cold, rainy winter months.

The horses are fed at 7:30 each morning, then let out to pasture, said Sara Losey, 21, the farm's only paid employee. Many of the horses receive special medicines or injections. All the stalls must be mucked out — backbreaking labor with a shovel and wheelbarrow. The work begins all over again in the evening, when the horses are brought back to their stalls, fed and medicated for the night.

Somebody stays at the farm overnight to make sure the horses are safe and to be there in case of a medical emergency. A number of the horses are in their 30s — geriatric in horse terms.

The farm makes a little money by offering private riding lessons, although about half the horses that live there are not ridable because of medical problems or age. The food, medicine and other expenses run about $5,000 a month.

Equine Rescue's backers say the horses play a special role by helping teens who are in trouble.

"A lot of these kids come from broken homes," Acey said. "They'll connect with one or two horses especially. The horse is a really good friend who always loves them."

Losey, who has worked on the farm since she was 12, said the teens who work on the farm often open up their lives to the horses, hugging them, talking to them and learning responsibility along the way.

Something along those lines happens to the horses themselves. Looking across the pasture, Losey pointed out how the horses have paired up, becoming best friends and revealing complex, unique personalities.

Cece had a boyfriend named Wes, but Wes died of a heart condition. Emma was a show horse all her life. Chaut was a rodeo star, but was passed around from one careless owner to another. For most of these horses, this is the last stop.

"This," Losey said, "is horse heaven."

Katherine Long: 206-464-2219 or klong@seattletimes.com