Teresa Paradis, the Chichester woman known for having a soft spot for animals, said two horses rescued last month in Vermont on the brink of death are doing much better.
Authorities said three horses died and two others were suffering from starvation on 26-year-old Heidi Wright’s Topsham, Vermont property.
Court paperwork says Wright told police that three horses had become ill and died over the winter months, including hers. The two surviving horses arrived in Chichester in May.
Wright is not being charged in the horses’ deaths because the bodies were too badly decomposed for police to press charges, Vermont authorities said.
Paradis was upset by Wright’s claims that the horses were ill.
“Between you and I, that was bullcrap,” said Paradis, who runs the Live and Let Live Farm. “I saw pictures before they were bulldozed into a hole. Actually, it’s double bullcrap, because if they were sick instead of dying from starvation, how come a veterinarian wasn’t called in? Weren’t you afraid that they were all going to die?”
Wright, who was hired as a caregiver for at least two of the horses, appeared in a Vermont court Wednesday on animal cruelty charges. She pleaded not guilty.
The Morgan quarter-horse and a Chestnut quarter-horse, renamed Mudslide and Monty, are both doing well, especially considering their condition when they arrived early last month, Paradis said Friday.
Using the Henneke horse body condition scoring reference, Mudslide was given a rating of one by a veterinarian, meaning she was close to starving to death. A follow-up examination by a different doctor on Thursday told a very different story. Mudslide scored a four, with 5½ meaning perfect health.
“She’s doing fabulously, wonderfully,” Paradis said. “When she first came here she was evaluated as being close to death. They’re both doing well, and neither ended up being sick.”
Paradis believes the two horses she has and the three that died were not sick or suffering from any sort of infection. It was neglect, Paradis said, plain and simple, something she said she detected once she saw photos from the scene, which became even more clear after examining Mudslide and Monty at her farm.
Two people who paid to have their horses boarded on Wright’s property lost their animals. One owner went to the site and found her horse dead and partially buried.
“You could see horse blankets over part of their face and you could see horse poop on them,” Paradis said. “It was terrible, one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen with live horses in a small area. Mudslide looked like she would die anyway. I had several people call me and say they were contacting the authorities.”
Paradis said she would go to Wright’s trial if no plea deal is reached.
“I would go on behalf of the horses,” she said. “This person should never ever be allowed to have animals again.”
(Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. )