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April 07, 2008 08:59 am
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Photos
Jerry Laizure/The Norman Transcript
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Once a champion, blind and abused mare gives birth
“Crystal hung solid with us and tolerated a lot more than other horses would. She’s truly the against-all-odds mare."
By Tom Blakey
CNHI News Service
LEXINGTON, Okla. — Veterinarian Dr. Sharon Marshall said she often returns to her Lexington horse ranch after treating abused and neglected horses, or euthanizing terminally ill animals at pet owners’ homes.
When she returns home and sees Crystal, a blind 18-year-old mare, with her newborn foal she said it does her heart good.
“It helps when I can come back to this,” Marshall said. “It reaffirms what I’m doing.”
Crystal was being starved and had been blinded when rescued two and a half years ago by Marshall and Norman animal welfare officers. Last week, the mare gave birth to a healthy foal.
“She’s truly a maiden mare. This is her first foal. All odds were against it,” Marshall said.
Officers rescued Crystal and 14 other horses in December 2005, from an east Norman horse ranch operated by Melinda Robb.
Animal welfare and police officers executed a search warrant on the Robb property and reported finding the horses in various stages of starvation and neglect. Crystal and another horse were locked by chains and padlocks in filthy stalls. The mare was “blind and underweight and in a stall unfit for a horse,” a police report said.
Neither of the horses had food. Other horses were outside in freezing conditions without food or shelter, police said.
Robb was ordered to stay off the property. Less than a week later, she was again arrested after entering the property, tying a horse to a tree and starving it to death — with food just outside its reach, police said.
In March 2006, Robb entered pleas of no contest to two counts of animal cruelty and was sentenced to two five-year deferred sentences to run concurrently. She was placed on two years’ supervised probation.
Robb, 50, was ordered to sell the horses owned by her family and to use the proceeds to pay feed, boarding and veterinarian bills. She was ordered not to train, show or own horses while on probation. Robb volunteered to undergo inpatient mental health treatment after her arrest, officials said.
Robb and her mother once owned well-bred horses that were shown in reining horse shows around the country.
“Crystal is a 1996 Amateur World Reining Champion,” Marshall said.
The filly’s sire is Royal Chic Olena of Whitesboro, Texas.
“He’s a high-level reining horse himself. She’s supposed to truly go in her mama’s footsteps,” Marshall said.
Crystal’s foal was conceived by artificial insemination. She’s presently nursing with her mother in one of about a dozen stalls in Marshall’s barn. Her handlers are keeping watchful eyes on the mare and her newborn, with the assistance of a camera mounted high in a corner of the stall.
Being blind, Crystal prefers living her life inside the barn, Marshall said.
“In all the time I’ve had her she’s not been successful in going outside — she panics,” she said.
Inside the barn, Crystal knows exactly where everything is located.
The foal’s birth was “anticipated to be a challenge,” Marshall said. But Crystal “came through it with flying colors.”
Marshall said she considered getting a nurse mare if Crystal didn’t accept her baby.
“She’s turned into a fantastic mama,” Marshall said.
In time, the foal will have to be weaned from Crystal so she can “get outside and rip and romp and stomp” like a normal foal, she said.
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When Crystal arrived at the ranch, the mare was emaciated and had “active lesions” in both eyes and “severe problems with her feet.”
Marshall said the mare was missing the triangular portion of the hoof on each of her four feet from being forced to stand in a dirty stall for an inordinately long time.
Crystal spent her first six weeks in bandages, she said.
“I don’t know how she was walking. She’s one tough cookie," Marshall said. "She was missing 50 to 90 percent of the major weight-bearing surface on all four feet."
It was another nine to 10 months before Marshall had “a good feeling” about Crystal's recovery, she said.
“Crystal hung solid with us and tolerated a lot more than other horses would. She’s truly the against-all-odds mare. For her to come back to reasonable health and get to the point where we could breed her and foal successfully and is now raising her filly …”
The filly is “growing like a weed.” She wears a bell so her mother will know where she is. The foal hasn’t been named yet, but “Bell” and “Jingles” are two possibilities, Marshall said.
“So often we hear the negative aspects of humane cases (abused or neglected animals). I wanted to let people know they can have a positive outcome,” she said.
Tom Blakey writes for The Norman (Okla.) Transcript. Contact tblakey@normantranscript.com
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