From: jpenovic@encore.com (Jan Penovich)
Subject: South Florida Update 
Reply-To: jpenovic@encore.com
Organization: Encore Computer Corp., Fort Lauderdale FL
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 14:07:31 GMT


Hi.  Lots of people sent me email and requested that I keep
you updated on what's happening down here.  Some asked how the
media is handling the horse situation. 

A few days ago I faxed a letter to the Sun-Sentinel telling
them about the horse rescue and suggesting that they give it
more coverage so people would be aware of what's going on and
maybe volunteer or donate.  I think it's a coincidence, but
the following article appeared in today's paper.

I edited out some of the article because it was very long
and my wrist hurts when I type, but I thought you'd all be
interested.  It, in general, tells how it is down here, and it
specifically deals with one family.

I'm reprinting this without permission of the Ft. Lauderdale 
Sun-Sentinel. 

"FREED BY ANDREW, DADE HORSES RACE RUSTLERS, HUNGER"
by John Hughes

In a room that opens onto the back veranda, manure splatters
the tile floor next to an exercise bench and a couch that no
one will sit on again.

Through the paneless windows, beyond where a silver teapot
rests on the kitchen counter, a charcoal-gray pony slurps
brown water from a swimming pool.

A gold quarter horse grazes from a planter that frames the
walkway to this beautiful home turned ugly by Andrew.

It is a barn now, shelter for 10 horses of various breeds.
They are kept, fed, and watered inside this sprawling yard by
a 3-foot stucco wall with stout iron-work now lying
noodle-like beside it.

These horses, freed for days by the strom that yet holds south
Dade prisoner, are corraled here, on this abandoned property.
They graze this lawn next to leveled palm trees, next to the
riding mower that sits as a reminder that something more than
yard work is needed here.

The sound of hooves on patio tile.  A pony poking its head
through a gate next to an intercom where visitors once
announced their arrival.  This world makes no sense, and these
horses must wonder - if horses wonder - what in hell is
happening here.

The Garcia family - Rafael, Maria, and 10 year old Elizabeth -
drives to this Redland homesite hoping to find Crysillis.

They drive away teary eyed and disappointed.  Every day since
the storm has been the same.  They drive to a farm where a
"Lost and Found" sign marks a shelter for wayward horses.
Nobody's sure how many roam free.  Rafael Garcia says
"thousands." 

The Garcias had a three-acre farm out here, with stables and a
30 foot trailer.  "You're used to seeing your stalls all
pretty and neat," Rafael says.  "Now they're gone.  I mean
nothing."

They had six horses, now they have five.

Crysillis is a 5-year-old light gray Arabian mare.  She's big
for her breed, 15.2 hands tall.  She has a short tail; it got caught
in a fence before Andrew blew the fences down and made miles
of plains out of horse country.

Len Griffing took vacation from his job as a traffic analyst for 
Broward county to do search and rescue horse work.  Last
Saturday Griffing and local horseman Abe Sanchez picked up 12
strays and took them to one of the few standing stables where
heart-sick and hopeful owners like the Garcias visit daily.
Others go to Tropical Park, where the most severely injured
are treated at a horse MASH unit.

For every renegade horse, there is an owner like Maria Garcia
who cries for Crysillis:

"It's beyond the body of the horse.  It's what it means. She's
part of us, part of the family."

So the family drives and stops and talks to other owners and
to wranglers like Griffing. They walk these fields and look
through twisted piles of trees and splinters that used to be
barns and fences.  They have seen horses with boards in their
sides, with nails poked into their skulls.

And they have heard the stories of rustlers, of truckloads of
horses being hauled out of Dade by horse looters.  (On Tuesday,
a friend of the Garcias found two of her horses at a farm  in
Ocala.)

The Garcias found one of their own horses, Phar Lap -
Crysillis' son - lying in a field so badly battered he had to
be picked up and placed in a trailer.

His friends told Rafael to shoot Phar Lap, told him the
yearling should be put out of his misery.

But Rafael remembers raising Phar Lap on a bottle, in the
bedroom of their Miami home.  He remembers the day the colt
dove into a swimming pool and Rafael jumping in - business
suit and all - to pull Phar Lap to safety.  Phar Lap, he says,
will live.

He looks at the paint-splattered horses in front of him and
Rafael Garcia wonders aloud what his horses must have gone
through in the dark hours of August 24.

"I imagine when everything started flying, there was a few
minutes when they went through hell," he says.  And he wonders
what Crysillis must think, if she's alive at all.

"She must be thinking, 'What did I do to deserve this? Why
don't they come and get me?'"


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