So, horses. First of all, our horses are just fine. They are enjoying their "new" digs. They like have so much room to graze in.
Horses of Hope, our therapeutic riding center, is up and running, albeit more slowly than we thought it would.
Last fall. the government of Puerto Rico disbanded the two mounted police divisions on the island as a cost saving measure, pretty much with no guidelines for what would happen with the horses. First we heard they were going to be sold for $25 each. Then we heard they were to be donated to non=profit organizations that did work in the community. Early in October, Elaine and Marie went to Bayamon (a city in the San Juan Metro area) to look at the horses, evaluate them, and put in a request.
It wasn't much of an evaluation. The horses were in stalls. The only way Elaine could see the horses move was a handler brought them out of the stalls and walked them up and down the aisle. Okay, based on the best information they had, Elaine and Marie chose four. When they got home, Elaine wrote a request for those four animals. The response was zero None. Zip. Nada. Between October and December Elaine emailed and called numerous times with the same result: no response.
Then on late in the afternoon of Thursday, January 3, 2019, she got an email from ASG, the government surplus agency. She could apply for the horses. The application deadline was Thursday, January 10 - one week. January 3 was the Thursday before Three Kings Day, arguably the biggest holiday of the year in Puerto Rico, an island that loves its holidays. Because January 6, Three Kings Day, was on Sunday, the official holiday was Monday. But many people, including pretty much everybody from ASG also took Friday off. That meant there was no one to talk to or ask questions of until Tuesday. It also meant two working days to assemble more than 17 pages of documentation supporting our application. Since one of the biggest sticking points was financial stability, since we are a new organization, Elaine also had to secure pledges of financial support.
ASG gave her a little leeway and she got the application in. Two people came out and inspected our "facility." They were okay with just about everything except the fact that we had no shade/shelter. The polices horses are used to being in stalls, not turned out, and they need shade. So we build two shade areas, one here on our property, one on the church property where we actually do therapy. They seemed okay with that. Beyond that, every week, sometimes every day, brought a new round of paperwork to be submitted, all with ridiculously tight deadlines. Elaine always complies. At the same time there was no information coming back about what or when we might hear about any horses we might get.
I will say this for the people from ASG: I really think they're doing the best they could with what they had. With no guidelines in place and minimal resources, they had to make up the process as they went along. It became one of the biggest bureaucratic CYA of all time. And to be honest, not without reason. Everybody, from the police officers who used to ride these horses (who were fired when the units were disbanded) to PETA to the "horse people" on the island (many of whom want the horses) to those of us legitimately trying to acquire the horses to other government agencies, is looking over their shoulder. Pretty much no matter what they do, they are pretty sure something is going to bite them in the ass.
To complicate all of this further, some of the horses were obtained with federal grant money. That means the Feds have to sign off on any plan to re-home those horses. They figure those horses won't be available until summer.
In what has become the SOP Elaine got a message about the 1st of April that said "tomorrow" is your one chance to come see the horses. So off she went again to Bayamon. When she got there she was told "they" believe we can only support two horses so we're only getting two. Fortunately, the two that we want are not Federal horses and should be available "immediately," or at least before summer.
On April 11 a radio station published an online story about the treatment - or mistreatment - of the horses. Again, in fairness, the horses were getting minimal level care - grain, hay, stalls cleaned out. but these are well-trained horses that are used to being out and worked everyday. They have now been standing in stalls (granted, big stalls, but stalls none-the-less) for more than six months. They have no turn out, no exercise. It is criminal. Again, the people on the ground are not the ones ultimately responsible. Whoever in the government/legislature who decided to do this with no provision for how is ultimately responsible.
Elaine got a call just before the news article was published asking if she would come to Bayamon on the 23rd of April to sign the contract. Then last week, after the article hit, they asked if she could come "tomorrow." Uh, no. "How about Tuesday?" Well, send me a copy of the contract so I can read it.
Mostly, the contract was okay. She did insist they add a paragraph that said ASG guarantees the horses are in good health and another insisting they turn over all records of their care, medical, hooves,feed, etc. It took some doing, but in large part because they were feeling the media pressure, they agreed and agreed to hurry the changes to the contract.
Whew! The upshot of all this is, today Elaine went to San Juan and signed the contract for two horses. She also got to see the care records in Bayamon (we'll get them when we get the horses) and talk to one of the police officers remaining to care for the horses. (His horse is one of the ones we're getting.) And, while she was there the vet - who is also one of our vets - came to vaccinate the horses, something Elaine has been insisting on.
Now we have to make arrangements to get them moved from Bayamon to here net week. ASG wants this to be a done deal! After the bad press, they need a good news story.
We are excited about it. We've got some prep to do but we'll be ready for the new arrivals.
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