by Ellen Harvey, Harness Racing Communications

Freehold, NJ — Red Rouge, a pacer with 253 starts and $83,258 in earnings, is the 80th horse assisted by the USTA’s Support Our Standardbreds (SOS) program.

Red Rouge, age 27, was seized on Sept. 2, 2012, by the Farmington (N.H.) Police Department and placed in the custody of the New Hampshire Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NHSPCA). Red Rouge was one of several horses, mini horses, dogs, cats and chickens seized; criminal charges were brought against the owner of the animals. To read more about this, click here.

According to NHSPCA Farm Animal Care Coordinator Suzanne Bryant, Red Rouge, who raced almost exclusively at The Meadows from age 2 to age 11, was “skeletal” upon seizure and weighed 780 pounds at 15.1 hands tall. His Henneke body score was a 2 on a scale in which 5 is ideal and 1 is a horse in danger of death.

Three weeks after seizure, Bryant reports that Red Rouge is “perking up. He’s getting three small mashes a day, along with alfalfa and hay pellets.”

Worming and vaccines will follow soon. Residents of New Hampshire that might be willing to provide foster care for Red Rouge should contact Bryant at sbryant@nhspca.org.

“He’s awfully cute and even though painfully thin, he’s quite cheerful,” says Bryant. “They were all trotting around on their new and improved feet, must’ve felt good for them to be cleaned up.”

The SOS program also provided assistance to the NHSPCA for the care of Golumbki (Dazzling Ranger–CS Cindy, 2:06.1h, $9,767, one foal), who was seized in 2010 by the Monadnock Humane Society with a group of eight other horses housed in four stalls for 10 years with only hay to eat. She is now in good health and advancing in saddle horse training. To read more about this, click here.

Of the 150 horses cared for over the past two years by the NHSPCA, they have received outside financial assistance for only two — the Standardbreds named above. No other breed registry provides financial assistance for horses whose care has fallen to a criminal level.

The SOS program provides financial assistance to nonprofit charitable groups caring for registered Standardbreds who have been seized, surrendered in lieu of prosecution or abandoned.

The USTA also offers Full Circle, a program that allows individuals to record their name in a horse’s Pathway file in the event that horse needs help in the future. Enrollment is free and open to anyone with an interest in a registered Standardbred. The form to enroll a horse is available here.

The USTA offers Pleasure Registration conversion to owners who plan to give away or sell their horse for pleasure use only and want to ensure that their intentions are honored and horses are not raced or progeny registered. Registration can be converted at no cost while a horse is still in the care, custody or control of their listed owner, with relinquishment of registration papers and completion of this form.

For more information about the USTA’s programs for Standardbred welfare, contact Ellen Harvey at ellen.harvey@ustrotting.com or 732.780.3700.