The Equinist: Articles and Commentary by Susan Kauffmann

When Cheryl McIntosh of Dewdney, BC, went to check her horses that morning, she knew something was wrong. She was normally greeted by a chorus of nickers from hungry horses, but that day, in the foaling season of 2003, the farm was ominously silent. The McIntosh’s 23 yr. old Tennessee Walker/QH cross, Queenie, had recently had a fine colt named Tracker. The mare had foaled out in a spacious field set up for mares and babies, and continued to live with the other pregnant mares until the McIntoshes noticed that Queenie was being picked on quite badly. Concerned for the safety of the mare and her foal, they moved the pair to a 20’ x 20’ pen made of 5’ metal horse panels. On that morning, however, when Cheryl approached the larger enclosed area that contained the pen, she saw no horses. “I thought I must have put them in a different pen,” she recalls, “because the gate was closed and everything looked normal.” Then she saw Tracker near a building outside the panel pen -- without...