A charity that found a two-year-old filly battered, “burned” and dumped to die in a city centre has questioned how the perpetrators can sleep at night.
My Lovely Horse Rescue was called when gardai found the youngster in Cork, Ireland, on Sunday night (20 October).
Volunteers from the charity, along with gardai and a vet, made their way in the dark, through scrubland, until they found the collapsed filly.
“When the gardai rang me, I asked if we needed to bring the horsebox and he said he didn’t think so – that’s when I knew it was bad,” volunteer Kelly Metterick told H&H.
“We went through ditches and over old wooden pallets to some scrub ground, I looked down and had to take a breath. I had to process what I was looking at, I thought she was dead and this was one we were too late for.”
The filly was alive, just, but in such a bad state, there was no option but to put her down.
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“We were taking it all in, by torchlight,” Kelly said. “She had all these sores, elongated and with the skin sloughing away.
“There were old ones as well as fresh; it wasn’t something that had just happened or from one incident.”
Kelly said the filly’s muzzle, eyes and much of both front legs was covered in what appeared to be burns; scabbing, sore areas, with very little hair and cracked, dead skin.
“And the crazy thing was, she had shoes on,” Kelly added. “Sometimes we get rescues who have been shod and overworked, with threadbare shoes, but these were like new.”
Kelly said that it can only be guessed what was done to the filly to cause her suffering.
“I don’t know what they could have done to her,” she said. “The sores look like shaft burns, over a long time, but those others on her muzzle and front legs – I don’t know.
“She was emaciated too – her hip was sticking out and there was a big sunken pit; there was nothing to her back end at all.
“How long she was down like that, I don’t know. There was faeces, and marks where she’d been struggling.
“She was two years old and I’d say she’d had no sort of normal existence, her whole existence would have been the height of abuse and neglect, and then dumped to die.
“But how strong was her little heart, to keep fighting, to lift her head while her whole body was decaying.”
My Lovely Horse Resuce is appealing for anyone with information to contact gardai in Cork on (00353) 21 494 6200.
“This was in a built-up area, someone must have seen something,” Kelly said.
“Who are these people; what sort of society do we have where people can do this to her? To watch her suffer like that in front of you, drag her into a field in the dark and dump her to die, and then go back to your warm bed and sleep – how can you?”
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Eleanor is an experienced journalist who spent over eight years working for local and national newspapers before joining H&H as news editor in March 2016. Passionate about equine welfare and exposing the truth, Eleanor has reported on all aspects of the industry, from Brexit to anti-bullying campaigns, and from dressage rules to mules. Her sport of choice is showjumping, in which she competes her own horses, and she also enjoys reporting at local jumping shows through to international championships.
