Meris Bickford says she was so shocked by what she saw when she visited Fair Play Farm a couple of weeks ago that she made an offer for a horse on the spot. She says the horse was thin with fresh eye wounds and broken teeth. It had also been exposed to the elements for such a long time that patches of hair were matted down and scabbed over with a skin condition known as "rain rot." (Pictured below).
Bickford says she paid $600 for the mare, even though the asking price was much more. "When I was asked to get on this mare and give her a turn around the indoor riding arena, I did it, and believe me I was reluctant because I thought she wouldn't be able to bear my weight. I thought she would fall down with the weight of someone getting on her back, honestly."
Bickford is an attorney and well-known member of Maine's horse and rider community who works for the Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals in Windham. The MSSPA is a non-profit that works to rehabilitate abused and neglected horses and other animals.?But Bickford's visit to Fair Play was not part of official business, at least not until she made a call to Maine's Animal Welfare Program later that day to report the situation.
And Bickford did not visit the farm alone. "I did see a little colt that was laying on ice, and he was shivering," says Marilyn Goodreau, the executive director of the MSSPA. Over the years she's seen a lot of horses living in some of the worst circumstances around the state. And she accompanied Bickford to the farm the day she bought the mare.
"He had a dirty blanket on him and as I went by him he had this very low, muffled whinny that was like a cry," she says. "So I said to the woman, 'Could I help you get this little colt up? Because he obviously couldn't get up on his own. And she said, 'Oh, he's all right.'"
Bickford says she was advised to write up a report about what she'd seen at Fair Play Farm, a facility that includes a mid-size barn with 18 stalls, an indoor riding arena and more than 40 horses corralled in separate pens. Each pen contains a wooden, two-sided structure able to provide partial shelter to several horses at a time.
"They were, as a group -- putting aside the stallion group, they had a group of stallions there whose body condition was actually a little better -- but the mares and geldings were skeletal and many of them had obvious wounds and sores. A lot of them are not getting under shelter at night. You can see that because they're covered in rain rot like my mare."
Farm owners Brett and Alexis Ingraham say there's a reason some of their horses are in poor shape. "I wouldn't say we're a rescue. We just take them in," says Brett Ingraham. "I don't want to be considered a rescue. You know, we just take in these horses. We know a lot of people that have horses and we take them so they don't have them."
Susan Sharon: "You mean people who can no longer afford to take care of them?"
Brett Ingraham: "Not only that -- it's people that buy and sell horses that are in bad condition that we take them from them."
Brett Ingraham estimates that he and his wife have sold about 15 horses they rescued over the winter. The rest are boarders, or show horses they say they either bought or bred themselves. Some of the animals are for sale. Some are not.
But the Ingrahams say all of their horses are being well treated and are regularly seen by a veterinarian. They say people driving by or visiting for the day don't understand where the animals have come from or how long they've been there.
"Like the case with that mare that Meris Bickford has," says Alexis Ingraham. Brett Ingraham adds, "We'd only had that horse for four days. We stated that right when she came here. We didn't even know the horse's name."
The Ingrahams say they spend about $5,000 a month just for feed for their horses. It's a lot of money for a couple that earns a living selling and breeding horses, offering riding lessons and taking in a few boarders. The couple say they're able to break even as long as they limit themselves to about 50 horses.
Susan Sharon: "Why do you want so many horses? What if you just had ten or 15?"
Brett Ingraham: "We just love them. We just love them. And if we can afford to take care of them, why not? I mean there's not any starving horses here, as you'll see."
"Well, we have received several complaints and I'm going to say the majority were in the last two weeks," says Norma Worley, the director of the state's animal welfare program in the Department of Agriculture. She says she cannot provide details about the state's investigation into the complaints. "We have responded. And we're working with their veterinarian, and our veterinarian is working to get a management plan established for these horses."
"The state vet has only been here one time, because there's no problem here," says Brett Ingraham. "The state vet was only out here because of all of the calls that were coming in," says Alexis Ingraham.
The Ingrahams say they've recently become the target of gossip on horse and rider Websites where photos of some of their horses have been posted and people write in to complain. Brett Ingraham says he's even caught people trespassing on his property trying to take pictures of their farm.
Marjorie Garcia, a neighbor who lives down the road, hasn't taken pictures, but she says she does worry about the horses. "I walk past the farm every day and I notice in recent months, they're out when it's really cold, even in the bad weather in those storms, those horses were out like that. They're out always."
"I think what's missing is we're not really seeing any results," says Christina Perkins, chair of the state's animal control advisory council, which works with the state welfare office. She's also an attorney who has handled animal abuse and neglect cases and she also paid a recent visit to Fair Play Farm and has asked for a meeting with state officials to find out what's being done.
"They are understaffed, underfunded, we all know that," Perkins says. "But these horses are outside and it's really frustrating to not know whether something is being done or not. I mean for all we know -- they might be doing what they can."
Perkins has yet to hear back whether she will get her meeting. Meantime, Meris Bickford's horse, Sweetheart, is being treated for the eye injury and the rain rot and is said to be doing well.