July 2022 Issue

The News East Coast Horse Owners Need To Know OUR TH YEAR 1 3 - PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT 280 LANC., PA 17604 Vol. 29 No. 6 July 2022 (Continued on page 10) …and much more! Inside... By Suzanne Bush “We don’t sell horses,” says Josh Ruby, “we sell memories… through relationships between good horses and their future riders.” Ruby, owner of Wolfe Agricultural Auctions in Thur- mont, MD, is trying to change the landscape for horses that are headed for auctions. Instead of opening the doors for anyone to bring any horse to the auction ring, Ruby and his team looked at the horses, thought about their needs and decided that the welfare of the animals was more important than profits. “Here at Wolfe Agricultural Auctions, we will not profit off of horses in need. If an underweight or crippled horse comes to our doors, we will not allow the sale of, or profit from selling, these horses.” Ruby is not naïve, nor is he a wild-eyed idealist divorced from reality. He’s been in the auction business his whole life and says he has sold everything. He has also had horses all his life. “I had a lot of fond memories and I al- ways loved horses,” he says. Al- though he had not been active in the equine world, he was a casual trail rider. But things changed when he decided to buy a horse for his eight-year-old daughter. “This Thing Is Going to Kill Somebody!” “In March I bought a horse for my daughter,” he says. “The guy who sold it to me said it was going to be a safe horse.” Ru- by’s barn workers rode the horse for a few days. He says that at first the horse was calm and easy to ride. The second day he was a little more spirited. Then the horse’s behavior changed radically and alarmingly. “The horse turned out to be reckless,” he said. One of the barn workers who had been riding the horse Wolfe Auctions Teams with Rescues to Put theWelfare of the Horses First said “Josh, this thing is going to kill somebody.” He said he felt that the seller had cheated him. “If they’re going to cheat me like this,” he says, he wondered what kinds of trouble less-experienced buyers were getting. Around the same time a dealer brought a horse to the auction. The horse was wear- ing a blanket. The blanket came off when the horse came into the ring. He was skinny and the sight of him had a profound effect on Ruby. “I felt bad for the horse,” he says, and knew that the horses deserved better. He didn’t want to provide a venue for people to exploit horses that way. “There’s no reason I should be doing that. I said this was bad for the horse industry and bad for the horses.” He decided to work with horse rescues to intercept horses that are too skinny or too lame or too sick to be put into an auction. He says he used social media to let people know that he was changing Wolfe Agricultural Auc- tion’s approach to horse sales. “And the rescues responded.” It's a Throw-Away Society Sharon Burrier, President of Rocky’s Horse Rescue & Rehabilitation in Thurmont says she had been buying horses at Wolfe Agricultural Auctions for several years. Her organization rescues horses and donkeys and also works with owners of horses who are trying to find new homes for their animals. Recently she got two horses from the auction and was concerned about the sale. “One had a pretty low body score and the other had EPM,” she says. “When I picked the horses up, Josh asked me about [my concerns] and he said he wanted to have a more honest auction. They didn’t belong there. They needed rehab and food and care.” Ruby asked for her help and she and her all-volunteer organization stepped up. “He’s trying to clean up and make it a family auction to where you can come and buy a horse and not get raked over the coals,” Burrier says. She and her staff are there to check all horses before they can enter the auc- tion, and they flag horses for the on-site veterinarian to examine. She says that they ask owners to surrender horses with body scores under three; Gentle Giants Horse Rescue of Mount Airy, MD has also joined the effort to make the Wolfe Auctions will no longer consign underweight, abused or crippled horses. Rescues evaluate all horses brought to the auction and consigners whose horses are not healthy and sound are asked to surrender them. Rescues will also provide euthanasia and castration for stallions. Injured, orphaned wild foal rehomed in rare move .. pg. 4 Para-driver fares well against able drivers at first CDE … pg. 6 Shopping for a trailer? See pages 8 & 9 Photo credit: Wolfe Agricultural Auctions