Attorney For Fabens Ranch Owners Calls It ‘Rehab For Horses’

Horse abuse?

Or horse rescue?

The attorney for a Fabens ranch, criticized on ABC-7 by animal rights activists for the condition of dozens of horses, said his clients are actually trying to save them, not kill them.

But Richard Jewkes, the attorney for Tom Heck and Tim Webb, the owners of M&H Ranch, said Thursday what his clients are running is a last chance ranch for horses, ones in such bad condition they can’t even pass inspection to be taken to slaughterhouses in Mexico.

“More horses are going to die if someone doesn’t intercede,” said Marile Sage, a local animal rights activist concerned about the condition of up to 80 horses on M&H Ranch. “These horses do not have adequate feed to survive out there.”

But Richard Jewkes said that’s simply not true.

“There have been some misconceptions about what’s going on out there,” Jewkes said.

He explained that what’s actually going on is an attempt to rescue horses on their way to Mexico for slaughter, since the last U.S. horse slaughterhouse was closed under the pressure of animal rights activists back in 2007.

“They get to the border and they’re inspected and they don’t meet the standards that the slaughterhouses require, and then that’s where the real problem starts,” Jewkes said. “What do you do with those horses?”

Longtime local horseman Hank Webb, no relation to ranch owner Tim Webb, checked out the situation this week with sheriff’s officials.

“They’ve been starved and abused and not here, but in other places, and we end up with them here,” Webb said. “They get off the truck looking for a place to die and some of them will die.”

ABC-7 asked Webb if the ranch was the best-case scenario for the horses.

“This is the best rehab option that I have seen anyplace because of the vast pastures they have,” he said. “It’s a national problem, it’s not just our problem. We just end up with it in our backyard.”

Webb said the hope is to rehabilitate the horses to the point where they can be sold to rodeos or dude ranches, or end up meeting the standards for slaughterhouses in Mexico as initially intended.

“They didn’t buy the horses to be slaughtered, they bought horses that had been rejected for slaughter and they’re trying to give them a second chance at life,” Webb said.

According to the New Mexico Livestock Board, it costs up to $3,000 a year to maintain a rescued horse.