Merlin was a stallion when he was sent to auction, rescued and gelded.
A new stallion castration program is positioning Maryland in the forefront of the effort to stem horse overpopulation.
Operation GELD (Gelding Equals Less Death) launched this spring by Gentle Giants Draft Horse Rescue aims to provide accessible and affordable funding for Maryland horse owners facing financial hardships.
“This is not directed at high end breeders producing high quality horses. We are not anti-breeding,” said Christine Hajek, founder and president of Gentle Giants Draft Horse Rescue. “It’s for people who are breeding horses for which there is no market, so we are not creating more unwanted horses.”
She said she first pitched the idea to the Maryland Fund for Horses eight years ago when she was a member of the board and it was rejected. Later the Fund would offer gelding clinics at a central location, but Hajek wanted horse owners to be able to have the service performed at home.
Using veterinarians as the conduit to horse owners would prevent people who didn’t need financial assistance from showing up for a free or reduced service, Hajek said. “I worked at the first clinic for the Fund and people were showing up with $60,000 trucks and $40,000 trailers - they didn’t need the service,” she said.
Vouchers provided to veterinarians who identify needy clients will address backyard breeders whose young offspring Hajek sees at an increasing rate at Pennsylvania’s New Holland auction. “We bought eleven horses a week ago and two were foals,” said Hajek in an interview in late June. “If your breeding plan is to sell young horses at auction, you don’t have a breeding plan.”
The program covers the cost of the gelding procedure (up to $200) and directly compensates the veterinarian who performs the surgery. It is the latest initiative in a widening horse welfare safety net in Maryland. The Maryland Fund for Horses and the Maryland Equine Transition Services, operated by the Maryland Horse Council, also now offer voucher funding for castrations, along with other services such as feed and hay “banks,” horse assessments and humane euthanasia to help horses stay out of the slaughter pipeline.
The national United Horse Coalition no longer provides funds for Operation Gelding state programs, but its website lists 10 other states in addition to Maryland that offer programs for low cost gelding. None of them are in New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Delaware.
Victoria Carlson, president of the Maryland Fund for Horses, said her group’s program has probably paid to geld as many as 17 horses since its first clinic in 2015. They limit those who qualify to individual horse owners, no commercial breeders or rescues, unless the horse is set to be adopted.
Earlier this year Hajek reached out to as many large animal veterinarians as she could find across Maryland to alert them about the new program. She said she appealed to vets because they would know who is at risk and be able to talk to clients reluctant to ask for help.
Hajek said veterinarians have performed eight castrations so far this spring, including one on a 17-year-old stallion saved from slaughter by a Maryland rescue. Most of the horses were over two years old, which is evidence that the owners were delaying castration due to cost or other prohibitive factors, Hajek said.
“There is no market for stallions who are over five years old,” said Hajek. “Most homes do not want an intact stallion, so gelding him will give him a leg up on adoption.”
There have been at least three large scale seizures in the region in the past eight years involving stallions sharing pastures with mares that led to mass overbreeding and tragedies, including the death of a stallion from injuries suffered when he was caught in a wire fence.
In the case of the 100-plus Appaloosa seizure last year in Quantico, Md., rescuers found dead mares with foals and the skeletons of an unknown number of horses. Other young horses deemed too sick to survive had to be euthanized.
Taking in stallions stresses rescues because of the demands of housing and expert handling. The rescue needs enough space and the handlers have to be skilled.
Often the horse owners who most need the services are the ones who don’t ask.
“Those we need to reach are toughest to reach,” said Hajek. “They don’t read publications or they are not on Facebook. Their vet is the best person to have the conversation with them.”
Hajek did not want to reveal how much money is being set aside for the year-long pilot program, but said GELD is prepared to fund surgeries for hundreds of colts and stallions.
Denise Parsons, who runs the Boyds, Md.-based Gaited Advocate Intervention Team (GAIT) rescue for gaited horses, has placed about 100 horses she has rescued and rehomed in the past seven years and very few are stallions.
“I try not to get stallions because I don’t have the physical resources,” said Parsons. “Stallions are extremely difficult to rehome.”
Gaited horses often end up at auction because of their good temperament, she said.
“Gaited horses are the Labradors of the horses, they are super sensible,” said Parsons. “Because they are so compliant they don’t get trained properly, there’s a lot of neglect and they land at the auction.”
In March a 17-year old, skin-and-bones Tennessee Walking Horse stallion was spotted in a Pennsylvania kill buyer’s lot by Kelly Smith of Omega Horse Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Airville, PA. Smith called Parsons to see if she could step in and purchase him.
She did. Parsons said knowing a trainer who could handle a stallion before and after surgery, was key to her rescue being able to buy the horse she now calls Merlin.
Because of Merlin’s age and post-surgery complications, the castration ended up costing more than double the amount GELD provided. But being able to take advantage of the $200 voucher from GELD helped.
“It pays a month of board,” Parsons said.
Hajek said she and her board will evaluate the GELD program next spring with an eye toward possibly expanding to other states. Carlson said she’d like the Maryland legislature to tackle the horse welfare and over-breeding problem. She said she is trying to rally support for a bill that would require non-racing breeding farms to be licensed as racehorse breeders are, and be subject to certain standards of care and biennial farm inspections.
If a breeder is not maintaining minimal standards of care it would not immediately fall on animal control, which so frustrated animal welfare advocates who tried to address the Quantico hoarding case before it rose to the level of a cruelty case and horses died. Carlson said breeders like Barbara Pilchard, who this spring was found guilty of 13 counts of animal cruelty and sentenced to five years’ probation, would then be subject to Department of Agriculture oversight.
“It would stop the Quantico-like situations,” she said. “They would be held to the same standard as other businesses.”
Veterinarians and others interested in more information about Operation GELD should check out the site: www.operationgeld.org. Information on other equine welfare programs available to Maryland horse owners at the Maryland Fund for Horses (www.mdfundforhorsees.org) and MD Equine Transition Services. (www.mdequinetransition.org)