Good on you Kate!
Kate is a Grade 9 student and she is on a mission to save Canada's so-called PMU horses from an undeserved trip to the slaughterhouse. Please read article below.
All the pretty horses
By MICHAEL HARRIS -- For the Ottawa Sun
If you have grown a tad cynical over the gross indecencies inflicted on you by smug, wine-swilling politicians and senior officials who call the loss of $100 million in taxpayers' money a "kerfuffle," I think I have found the antidote in Barrhaven.
In a house there, the pure flame of idealism and moral energy is alive and well in the person of one Kate Schroeder. Kate is a Grade 9 student at Mother Teresa High School and she is on a mission to save Canada's so-called PMU horses from an undeserved trip to the slaughterhouse.
This whole, sad story begins with a drug called Premarin. This drug was created by the pharmaceutical company Wyeth-Ayerst as a hormone replacement for women struggling through menopause. While Premarin was in vogue, a strange industry sprang up. Mares were kept constantly pregnant so that the required hormone could be extracted from their urine. It was routine for these horses to be in foal while they were still nursing their last foal.
Some farms kept hundreds of these animals, often in dreadful conditions. But nothing quite as dreadful as what is happening now. A little context: Over the years, hormone replacement therapy for women has been widely criticized. The controversy has two sides. Animal rights activists decried the conditions in which the animals were being kept and health experts worried about the side effects of the drug on the women who had been encouraged to use it. As a result, Wyeth-Ayerst has so far cancelled 50% of its contracts with farmers who were keeping PMU horses to supply hormones.
Almost overnight, between 14,000 and 20,000 horses went from being an important economic asset to hard-pressed farmers to a huge liability. (If you count the mares' fetuses, the number of horses at risk doubles.) Since there was no other economic value for these medical "dairy" horses, there was suddenly a surplus of them on farms across the country. No longer able to justify their PMU stables, farmers tried to find homes for the unneeded animals.
This was no easy task. PMU horses have had very little contact with humans. They are not trained saddle horses. Though certainly not wild, the horses know other horses, not people. Accordingly, the effort to place them in foster farms was very much a horse rescue, not a bargain-basement horse-shopper's dream.
The average cost of saving one of the animals is $1,000, which includes the price of the animal and transportation fees to its new home. Of equal importance, though, the animals need the loving care and patience of their prospective owners to make the transition from hormone factories to wonderful human companions. Because of all the difficulties of adopting the PMU horses, because it is hard work as well as costly, most of the animals are earmarked for the slaughterhouse.
Enter Kate Schroeder. After learning about the unwanted horses from a television show, Kate contacted an organization called The Hoof Beat, a non-profit group of horse lovers dedicated to saving as many of the PMU horses as possible. Kate's contact at The Hoof Beat was Barbara Claussen, who is taking in 20 of the animals at her Nova Scotia farm in Lunenburg County while looking for permanent homes for the animals. After exchanging e-mails, Kate went to work for the cause.
It was not a difficult decision. Kate's mom, aunt, and grandmother were ardent horse-lovers. When she was a little girl, Kate attended Saddlewood horse camp and her own affection for the animals was sealed. "I just love horses. They are living creatures and it's just not fair what's happening to them here."
After corresponding with Barbara Claussen, Kate sought advice from the chaplain and guidance counsellor at Mother Teresa High as to how she might be able to help the horses. With no stabling facilities, she decided that her best contribution would be to raise money for the cause. She raised $600, a sum that would save two foals. Barbara Claussen was ecstatic -- and deeply impressed with her teenage benefactor from Ottawa. She passed her thanks on in an e-mail: "Wow! I can tell you that you will have a horse rescued as of now! We bought some very sorry-looking foals for $250 each that are in need of lots of love and attention. We will not be able to find homes for them right away, but will place them in foster farms where they will have the vet care they need and some contact with people. I attached a picture of the foals you helped save. If you don't mind, I would like to name one of them after you. Big Hug -- Barbara and Sibylle from The Hoof Beat."
(Kate's foal has been adopted by horse-lovers in Cape Breton, where it will be trained as a western riding horse.)
I spoke to Kate on one of the days I had watched the most senior members of the former Liberal government of Jean Chretien bobbing and weaving in front of the public accounts committee over the matter of $100 million in squandered, and perhaps swindled, taxpayers' money. While each of them was quick enough to puff up with their former self-importance in the scheme of things, none accepted any responsibility for a deceitful program that operated more like a money-laundering operation than a government program. The bureaucrat at the centre of the scandal, Chuck Guite, was riding horses on a dude ranch in Arizona, while a 14-year-old girl from Ottawa was saving them in Canada.
Good on you Kate
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