Here we are, another atmospheric river winter and over 200 horses are still trapped, standing and forced to lay down in a urine- and manure-saturated mud pond at Rancho Jonata in Buellton.
The mud is not good for their hooves. With uncovered hay bins, they are also forced to eat soaking wet hay that quickly goes moldy. At night, when temperatures go down to freezing, they are standing and have to lay on ice. This business has a barn and couple pipe corrals, but it does not move the horses into shelter or install an inexpensive carport cover in the corral where they are kept prisoners. It is an abuse of animals to have too many horses crammed into a small corral, exposed to extreme heat without shade in the summer to freezing cold and soaking wet in the winter.
There seems to be no way to address this extreme animal cruelty until Santa Barbara County’s Board of Supervisors gets laws in place to make this illegal. It breaks my heart to see these horses suffering day after day and year after year. We need to stand up as community and rescue these horses that are in plain view along the 101.