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Magic Route
"Magic Route" is in need of help! Neigh Savers has made a donation to help this starving horse as have Neigh Savers friends Pauline & Ritchie. Please read this heartwrenching story and help if you can.
Caroline Betts from SCTR writes:
Dear friends,
Last week I was contacted by a woman who had responded to a craigslist ad for a lovely big six year old
off track thoroughbred chestnut gelding, and shown up to find a starving horse. She had attempted to
rescue him, but her own boarding facility would not allow him to remain on the property in his condition.
The woman basically asked if we could rescue the horse from his owner.
SCTR volunteer and foster Laure Ross went to investigate, and found the horse - indeed starving - at a
boarding facility in Norco. He has been there for several months, reportedly entering the boarding facility
in very poor condition, yet nobody had reported his condition until just last week. His owner readily relinquished
him, she has owned him since 06/2008 and hasn't paid her bills or feed since January. The boarding facility is
one at which owners pay for board AND feed; the facility feeds what is purchased by the owner. Laure fed him
for two days herself until we could remove him.
The horse is 2003 gelding Magic Route, who is by Special T stallion Mud Route, and raced twice in California for
his connections. Obviously, it is impossible to know where he was between the time of his last race at Fairplex
2006, and his purchase by the owner that has starved him since last summer. Notably, sire Mud Route is himself
contributing to racehorse retirement and rehabilitation through CARMA! You can read about how breeding your
mare to Mud Route helps ex racehorses in need and also generates a tax deduction for
you at Special T Farm.
Magic Route is now safe and being fostered by Laure, who has offered to donate/fund his hay herself.
Laure is a UC-Davis trained vet, and I don't think he could be in better hands. Obviously, there are going
to be other, significant costs engaged in returning this horse to health, if that is possible. Bloodwork shows
that he is leukopenic and anemic. More bloodwork is being done today. Colic is always a danger with horses
in this condition. Magic Route is over 17hh, and 300 pounds underweight.
Update from Caroline - April 18, 2009
Dear Friends,
I wanted to write immediately and thank each and every one of you for reaching out and
donating to help us rescue and care for the starving young TB gelding, Magic Route.
The enormous outpouring of support for Magic Route has been an incredibly uplifting
experience for all of us involved with him. We have received donations from Santa Monica,
to British Columbia in Canada, and from as far away as Germany! We were most touched,
also, by donations received from some of those that we met for the first time at the recent
CARMA roundtable meeting in Arcadia. And many of you are first time donors to SCTR;
we hope that - and will strive to - always reward your trust in us as a donor.
I really can't describe how grateful and fortunate we feel for all of you to have cared so
immediately about this lovely horse. THANK YOU ALL!
I have now posted Magic Route's story and new photographs of him, as of yesterday, on our
website (click here). Magic
has already gained weight, is eating everything Laure can feed him (and obviously that involves a
careful re-feeding program), and as you will see, his eye looks bright and hopeful in the new
photographs. Laure bathed him for the first time yesterday, and so is beginning to deal with the
extensive patches of rain rot in his coat. We are really optimistic that this horse will make a full recovery.
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