Larkin Valley ranch saves pregnant mares from slaughter

LARKIN VALLEY — When Lynne Hummer celebrated her 50th birthday in November, the scene might have looked more like a party for a 12-year-old.

The event, held on Hummer's ranch and marked by punch, snacks and pony rides for children, wasn't really a birthday party at all, but a fundraiser for Pregnant Mare Rescue, the organization Hummer founded in May.

The catalyst for the Watsonville resident's project was a horse auction she attended in Roseville with several members of Northern California Equine Rescue. That group is a regular visitor to such auctions, where horses are commonly sold at about $.50 per pound for slaughter, and then shipped to foreign countries for consumption. Among other places, France, Belgium and Japan are in the business of horse meat. Horse consumption is illegal in the United States.

"I couldn't believe the way the horses were treated — it was heinous," Hummer said. "If a horse is out of line, the mode of operation is to take a baseball bat to their legs. But if you complain, you get blacklisted, and then you can't go to another auction."

Three horses were auctioned off that day; Northern California Equine Rescue put in the highest bid for two, and Hummer bought the third — a brown quarter horse named Rosy.

Hummer had always been a horse lover, riding as a kid and involving herself loosely with horse rights groups in recent years. But acquiring Rosy propelled her into a position of full-time care, and, to accommodate her project, she and her family relocated from their home in Campbell to a ranch north of Watsonville.

"We'd wanted to relocate to property anyway, so this made sense as the right thing to do," she said. "There are affluent communities here, so I'm hoping this will generate a little interest."

Hummer decided to focus on saving pregnant mares for a couple of reasons. One, of course, is that the offspring is saved along with the mother, and the second has to do with the pharmaceutical use of their urine. Pregnant mare urine is used to make a drug for estrogen hormone therapy, and with the recent discovery that the drug may cause health problems, demand for it has waned and mares are getting sold in high numbers.

"We're going to save as many mares as we can each year, and this seems like the best way," Hummer said.

Hummer, it should be said, is neither a vegetarian nor, in the broader sense, an animal rights activist; her activism — and, one infers, the deep-seated empathy that drives it — does not extend to the animal kingdom at large. She is simply enamored with a particular animal, although she would say her admiration is anything but arbitrary — and she cites her favorite animal's physical prowess, grace, exquisiteness and a devotion to humankind rivaled in scope only by dogs, of which the Hummer family has two.

"Nobody ever went to battle on a cow or a goat," Hummer said. "Horses are majestic and they're magical, and have been a service for so many centuries to man they're a significant part of the American heritage."

The Hummer Ranch encompasses only a few acres, but land with the potential for grazing extends way beyond it. The family's house, where Hummer, her husband and their two children live, sits at the top of a hill, at the base of which is their two-acre pasture. The space is cordoned by a wooden fence low enough for the adult horses to bridge it with their necks and eat the leaves off nearby saplings, which they frequently do. Within the pasture is a blue canopy that functions as a makeshift barn when the weather turns cold or inclement, though Hummer said she plans to build a real barn at the top of the hill next year.

The pasture is adjoined to a huge grassy plain that stretches, in the direction the house faces, to a distant mountain range. The juxtaposition of green flatlands with the rolling hills on either side makes for quite a view, and looking from atop the hill, the animals below seem diminutive inside the landscape, like toys. Hummer said that, though the horses have yet to travel beyond their confinement, getting them more space is a priority.

"That's our next step, to ask the neighbors if the horses can walk on their land," Hummer said.

Huge eucalyptus trees stand adjacent to the Hummer house, affording swaths of shade that reach from the hilltop down to the pasture's uppermost edges. Still, on a chilly winter day last week, none of the horses left the sunshine as they roamed lazily about, rubbing heads with each other, munching on leaves and doing other things that horses do.

Rosy dallied near Hummer's most recent acquisition — Dazzle — who found a tasty plant and wouldn't leave it alone. Gorging aside, "Dazzle" is no misnomer — the radiantly white and muscular 1,700-pound mare is an attention-grabber, and also a former urine-provider who was downsized.

On the other side of the pasture were Roxy and Dozor, Rosy and Dazzle's foals, respectively, and, finally, Red, the pasture's lone male.

"He's our resident gentleman," Hummer said, adding that Red is a gelding: "I don't want these mares to get pregnant all over again."

Spending time at the ranch were Hummer and the three other volunteers who make up Pregnant Mare Rescue, all of whom devote some time each week to such tasks as mucking the pastures and training, grooming and feeding their subjects.

"We teach the horses to wear a halter, to pick their feet up so a trainer can take care of their feet, and to move forward and backward," Hummer said. "The key is to teach them while they're young. If they get older and they're not trained, you're in trouble."

Hummer said she plans to have more fundraisers like the one she held in May, and to promote the group by featuring the horses in local parades.

"There's something about the horses that's calming and therapeutic," said Bob Bronner, one of the volunteers. "They'll do anything for you. They're great animals."

Contact Joe Rosenheim at atjcopeland@santacruzsentinel.com.

Copyright © Santa Cruz Sentinel. All rights reserved.

                             Subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter

Dear Friends, please join our Monthly Newsletter and stay informed as to our quest and progress to save pregnant mares and their foals from Slaughter. You will receive updates with photos, rescue information and adoption opportunities.

Your Privacy is important to us. We promise not to sell, or give away any information regarding your Newsletter Subscription information.

Please fill in the form below to subscribe. Fields with asterisks must be filled out.

Thank you,

Pregnant Mare Rescue