Local horse rescue saves animals from slaughter

COLUMBIA STATION -- His name is Chance. He used to be a race horse called "JB's Crown."

Chance raced 53 times, won twice, placed 2nd nine times and 3rd four times. He earned a total of $31,800.  

When his racing career ended, the beautiful brown throughbred gelding was left in a field to starve to death. 

"He was skin and bones and couldn't move," Brenda Lewis said. "One side of his chest was caved in and the other was bulging out because he wouldn't put weight on one side. He had abscesses on all four feet.  He was so starved, he couldn't even shake his tail." 

But Brenda Lewis saw a light in his eyes and when the rescue organization she worked with refused to help him, she decided she would save him herself. 

That's why she named him Chance, and named her new horse rescue after him -- Another Chance Equine Rescue, or ACE. 

Now, Chance shares a pasture with Buddy, who has a permanent swollen leg and scars from a run-in with a barbed wire fence, as well as Ci-Ci and Winston, whose owners couldn't care for them anymore. There's also Lady, a gentle beauty who was beaten so badly it took Brenda two years before she could touch her nose. 

ACE survives on donations and volunteers, like John Carney, a paramedic and now vice president of the organization.  

"We're the last chance for all of the horses that we have," Carney said. "We take in horses that all other rescues may not want to take in."

If it wasn't for ACE and other rescue organizations like them, chances are good that these horses would probably end up in the slaughter pipeline. It's a place where unwanted horses are sold for their meat and then sent to slaughter in Mexico or Canada, Carney said.

Channel 3 News Investigator, Tom Meyer told the story of the Sugar Creek horse auction in the heart of Ohio's Amish country. Even though court rulings shut down horse slaughtering operations in the U.S., Sugar Creek sells 100,000 horses each year, many of which are trucked out of the country and then slaughtered for their meat. 

ACE is trying to save those that it can from facing that fate.  

"Our goal and mission is to save horses but in reality what happens is they end up saving us," Carney said. "They teach us compassion, patience and unconditional love."  

ACE is supporting federal legislation that would make it illegal to transport horses out of the country for slaughter. To learn more about ACE and its efforts, click on the link.