Making ‘a Dent in Misery’

Joe Shelton never planned on being an angel to castoff animals. But that was before he met a horse named Singer.

Ten years ago, Shelton was working on a thoroughbred farm when he went to watch an auction. There he saw Singer, a dark bay thoroughbred with a white spot on her forehead, going for $700.

When he asked why she was being crammed haphazardly into a truck with six other mares, he was told they were being shipped to a slaughterhouse in Texas to be turned into dog food or exported to dinner tables overseas.

Shelton was horrified. Slaughterhouse dealers typically try to buy horses for $600 or $700 and can double their money selling them by the pound. The broodmares are heavier and bring more money than the geldings.

He found out the horses were being kept overnight at a local livestock pen--with hundreds of other slaughterhouse-bound animals--and he decided to save Singer.

He hurriedly borrowed $1,000 against his credit card to buy her. Then, holding her on a rope while standing in a phone booth, he called farms and ranches in the Yellow Pages, looking for someone with a trailer to take her in.

Singer wound up safe in a warm barn, and that was just the beginning.

“That horse changed our lives,” said his wife, Cathy, who works for a real estate title company.

Now Shelton has his own ranch, breeding new racehorses and saving old ones. He has branched out to accommodate seven dogs, 35 cats, some goats, chickens, ducks, a huge turkey and an aggressively protective parrot named Maggie.

More than 100 horses have passed through Shelton Farm, with up to 25 living there at any one time. Some of the mares are more than 20 years old. Shelton calls them “The Old Ladies.”

The horses each cost about $80 a month to feed. Their hefty veterinarian bills are financed in part from selling racehorses. Because Shelton’s business is for profit, he has trouble attracting donations. So he struggles, losing money every year to feed his rescued animals.

He and Tammy Gerard, his ranch manager, go to the local SPCA on Fridays, euthanasia day, to save a couple of cats and dogs. Many retired racehorses come to him from a nearby college after medical students are through practicing their healing skills on them. If not for Shelton, they would be put to death. Instead, many of them will live productively into their 30s, working as private riding horses and even performing at horse shows.

What they can’t do is race.

However, the mares can breed, even if they have injured legs. The reason they end up in the slaughterhouse is because no one wants to pay to keep them alive.

Shelton’s friends tease him about his soft heart. They tell him he can’t save the world.

His answer: “At least I can make a small dent in the misery.”