On Tuesdays We Cry For The Camera

I was hoping to take a few days off from writing this thing, so I could sort and organize a mountain of information for a post I have been working on.  Contrary to what the village idiots claim, I actually do quite a bit of research and fact checking to pull these posts together.  It can be time-consuming, but this something I took on because I felt it was important to shed some light on an escalating situation.  However, as more and more people speak out and come forward, HiCaliber seems to up their level of fuckery and give us even more to work with.  I guess that’s what happens when you’ve left your proverbial asses hanging out everywhere and people are starting to talk among themselves. There is a lot of ground to cover today, so this is gonna get long again.  I gotta warn you that I’m beyond irritated by this confederacy of dumbasses, so I’m likely going to offend people more than usual.  I’m also pretty sure I don’t give a singular crap if I do.  To put a little context on this first part, you might want to read this post HiCaliber made on Monday and then re watch this video from Satan Tara that I had put up last time.  Pay special attention to what she says about HiCaliber in it.  Ready?  Let’s get into it…

It seems to me that it was pretty cut and dried that HiCaliber were going to be the safety net for those TBs.  Many of us recall the live feed where Romney allowed Satan Tara to swap out those horses and even the hostile post about the `haters’ kicking up a fuss and making her bring one of the horses with a burned out lip home rather than something else she found `sexy’ which usually just means it didn’t cringe away from her like most horses do.  At any rate, the horses were all relisted with an `HC’ after their number on the tags.  The village idiots rested easy knowing that they weren’t going to have a date with slaughter any time soon and looked for their endorphin rush elsewhere for the time being.  Even as the last big load from Louisiana was arriving with a large number of private buyer horses and not a lot of obvious TBs, the village idiots were absolutely beside themselves with excitement and had forgotten all about the ones left behind.  Remember all those allegedly pregnant mares that they just had to save?  Neither do the villagers despite the fact that only one pregnant mare made it to California according to their intake team. That was until Satan Tara decided to stir the pot and say that all those private buyers she had refunded deposits to, were no longer interested in the TBs due to the drama surrounding them (see previous post for those screen shots).  Because the village idiots will like anybody that HiCaliber tells them to like, many of them were over on Tara’s page and actually briefly had independent and logical thought causing them to ask questions, which is why Romney wrote the hostile missive above.  When people started asking questions and it became apparent that it was actually Satan Tara that was the source of the information,  Romney hastily edited out the blaming people spreading rumors as the reason these horses are about to be slaughtered.  They aren’t about to be slaughtered btw, but that’s another issue for another day.  What followed was a whole slew of contradictory statements in the comment section as they scrambled to cover their asses and bring the villagers back into line.  Even though Romney lies all the time, she’s not very good at it, so she brought the expert,  Satan Tara, to further confuse the situation.  How this eventually plays out is anybody’s guess.  One of the comments I had seen was where the Louisiana rescues that had asked HiCaliber to stand down were?  Well, HiCaliber ran them off so they are off not buying horses from wannabe kill buyers and intercepting them before bottom feeding swamp donkeys like Satan Tara and her convicted felon dough fuck boy get their mitts on them.  You know, like real rescues tend to do.

Ok, moving on to Tissue Tuesday, Romney was back in action at auction today with extra layers of mascar on and ready to breathe heavy and weep for the camera. It was a total shit show from beginning to end.  You would think after their post on Monday saying that they had no more room to save the Louisiana horses that maybe, just maybe they’d give the auction a miss for a change.  Sadly, no.  The same old posts with the same old manipulations were rolled out and the begging ensued.  If you have rage issues, you should probably stop reading here.  Consider yourself warned.

You read that correctly.  They fucking KNEW about this horse for at least a week and probably more and decided that she wasn’t as important as driving across the country to buy a bunch of horses from a convicted felon and his swamp donkey.   Of course people donated to get this poor soul `safe’ even though it was obvious to everybody that she needed to be released from her pain yesterday.  What would have been the appropriate thing to do would have been to call a vet to come out and euthanize her right there on the spot.  Instead, they decide they need an additional $650 over and above the $200 ransom they just paid.  You can’t skim if you don’t have the extra there.  After having to trailer in to the nearest clinic, of course, this horse was put down and we should all be happy that at least a vet did it and she didn’t get hauled two hours to get shot in the face like they have done to others.  Still, I don’t know how they sleep at night knowing that their own greed and self promotion caused even more suffering for this horse.

 

Next up is this poor mare and her 3 month old foal.  She couldn’t walk either and rather than get her help right there or, hey, maybe call Animal Control on these sons of bitches that are allowing horses to be in this much pain, let’s ask the village to pay $1700 for the pair.  I actually even saw somebody comment they were waiting for their social security check so they could donate.  I don’t have an issue with putting this poor mare down.  I do have an issue for paying somebody for the privilege to do what is right by her and then asking for so much over and above when the poor thing isn’t going to even have so much as a carrot from them.  The volunteer that went with them to the clinic even said that the vet only took one x-ray of the worst foot, so that couldn’t have been a big bill.  Then, they have Mea Ola’s come to pick up the baby, so she’s off the feed bill too.  Not that they handed Mea Ola’s any of their $650 over.  No, please send more money to them.  Again, you’ll likely never see a single invoice for any of this.

HiCaliber Josie

HiCaliber Carter

Because, God forbid they go home with an empty trailer, they managed to scrape up two horses to buy.  There were more than a few there but they had to allow Misner to buy the ones he wanted first and then got outbid on a horse that they were attempting to whip up some drama about.  The horse had a dent in its head, likely from getting kicked as a baby, but suddenly became a horse with head trauma and more!  No joy this time though.  The village did not rally enough funds and the horse went with a private buyer so there is some hope that it won’t end up standing around in a small pen and getting used for unneccessary vet procedure practice.  I’m not sure why the bay horse needed to be `rescued’ nor am I sure why they felt a need to buy the pinto mare from Misner after the auction other than Romney said she was pretty and cried for the camera.  At least they have two to bring home to the ranch where they stated the day before that they had no more room until they `move’ some horses.  Well, it turns out they did `move’ at least one prior to auction…

 

They casually slipped the fact that Casey had died in their initial auction post.  Casey was one of the slaughter11 horses which was the big miracle save and publicity stunt that was a precursor to the Louisiana Shit Show.  A warm up shit show, if you will.  You may remember him for being the horse that was collapsed on the drive way after being drug out there from the trailer he had been stuffed in.  At some point in late November/early December he was adopted out to the same family that also adopted HiCaliber Pandy.  HiCaliber posted a feel good video clip of the little kids being all excited to get both horses.  Flash forward to around March and the two horses are back at HiCaliber.  Pandy is promptly put back up for adoption and goes home with a known horse flipper, while Casey is said to have come back to Hicaliber with his mane and tail all braided up, but no frogs left in his feet and he had strangles.  Obviously he was not put back up for adoption nor did they make much mention of him being an adoption fail.  He was up in the barn around May 10th, but was kicked out into pen #12, being fed a straight mush diet. soon after.  Not enough of it, but still straight mush.  By today, he’s a dead horse and what is truly disturbing is the admitted circumstances surrounding that death.  In the screen shots above, they mention he died on his own and before the vet could get there.  Do you have any idea how much suffering had to go on for that to happen?  I’ve had cast horses and it’s not a big deal to pull them out if you know what you’re doing.  It takes a helluva struggle or a long time being stuck upside down to kill one.  If he was colicing and cast, he was already in distress.  If he coliced after he cast due to the weight of his bowels causing necrosis, then he was suffering a very long time. Either way, another needless and horrific death at HiCaliber.  I’m sure people will say `shit happens’ and `fail forward’ but that’s a cop-out.  They have TOO MANY HORSES to adequately take care of and very few, if any of the residents on that property are even motivated enough to get off their ever expanding asses and do night checks or even help with feed.  How many more have to die like this before the village idiots wake the fuck up?

The above horses were taken in about a month ago after their owner passed away.  All are elderly, but in excellent body condition.  These pictures are the last we ever heard about them. There was never an official intake nor were their names announced other than what the daughter of the former owner provided in comments.  As a result, it is difficult to locate them on the feeding charts if they are even there at all.  Because they were relinquished, there was no big fund raising drive for them which would automatically put them on thin ice.  Where are they?  Why no intakes? So many other horses unaccounted for.  For instance, do we know if Drama and Breen are still alive?  Are they being cared for or are they suffering out in the sun and eating off the dirt.  Speaking of unaccountability, Cheech Dana rolled in on Sunday with another overstuffed load from Louisiana.  No video of the arrivals, no pictures or mentions of what she brought other than one is so sick with an upper respiratory issue that it had to be moved into the barn.  Did the gray horse with cancer that Satan Tara gave them, make it back or did they leave him behind to die knee deep in shit in on that lot?  If you dare ask after the wrong horse, you’ll be invited to dine on male genitalia and they will sick the village idiots on you.  So transparent!

One of the shit mountains

Once again, I’ve only scraped the surface of a whole lotta fuckery that went down the past few days.  It’s difficult watching this all unfold and the answer is not looking away.  There are horses disappearing, there are horses suffering and foolish people are enabling all of this.  Charles Manson Michelle is missing in action with the excuse she isn’t feeling well.  That’s likely not the whole truth and it doesn’t matter.  As much as she would like it to be, this isn’t all about her.  This is about the organization and how far off track they have gotten.  They seem to believe that only they can save horses and they must take in every one they possibly can.  They pay great lip service to `responsible rescue’ as far as fund-raising goes.  Sadly, they don’t practice it.  A huge part of responsible rescue is knowing your limits.  I’ve seen both Romney and Charles Michelle mock other rescues in the past for only buying one or two horses at auction and not taking others home.  I can guarantee you those other rescues didn’t buy off a kill buyer and they only took home what they had room to properly care for, not to stockpile in shit filled pens.  I know I get branded a hater along with anybody else that dares to ask questions.  I’m good with that.  If that’s what it takes to get some accountability, then color me hateful.  With me it will always be about horses first.  I know many of the readers here feel the same.  So, back to what I was working on until the next drama flare up.  Keep the faith, people.  Change is on the horizon…

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Fudging Numbers and Stretching The Truth HiCaliber Style

I was hoping for the weekend off from this blog, but apparently there is no rest for the wicked and even less for those of us that feel compelled to call the wicked out on their crap.  Before we get started, I just want to thank most of the people who have provided such excellent discussion in the comment section.  We are starting to get the odd village idiot find their way over here and they are welcome too as long as they are polite.  A few have not been and, as a result, they are in time out. That’s not because I can’t take criticism, but rather they seem to have nothing to say and their intent is to just spam the comment section and deflect from the fuckery that we highlight here.  Still, I take the trolling and complaining as a good sign.  It means we’re getting to them.  It means that they’ve got something to be concerned about.   It means the sooner they knock off their crap, the sooner I can go back on hiatus because I’m going to need a break before I tackle the next `issue’ that I have planned.  I wonder who I’ll be accused of being when that happens…

Nothing says `rescue’ like representin’ for your kill buyer buddy.

So, 14 more horses trickled in from Louisiana on Saturday night.  Even though she’d spent the earlier part of the day riding in a parade, Charles Manson Michelle did not deem this arrival as important enough to waltz her ass across the drive way to help unload.  Instead, we were left with Romney and some other board members grating on our nerves on the live feeds.  Sadly, Romney did most of the talking for the initial part of the live feed and we were treated to her loud yapping about how these horses were `saved from slaughter’ while she wore a hat from the Thompson Feed Lot.  One of the more idiotic statements made by a red shirt was that these horses were all going to slaughter because they were `ribby’.  Go ahead and just think about that statement for a minute. I’ll wait… HiCaliber likes to say that Thompsons are kill buyers so you gotta wonder how wearing their gear is in any way appropriate.  The rest of us know that Thompsons are just bottom feeding horse abusers, but it’s still wildly inappropriate and just straight up ignorant for the CEO of a rescue to be wearing Thompson swag without any sense of irony whatsoever.  The only good thing about any of this is that after the complete shit show the first few loads out of Louisiana were and word of Bubba Misner being sent to get a load for them was leaked out by him,  they hired KC Transport to go get this next batch so the horses won that small victory, or at least this batch did.  The unloading went much like the first shit show with exhausted horses standing around for literally hours on end while the HiCaliber `medical team’, minus the 30% vet, went about their poking, prodding and doing their level best to make sure at least one of these animals gets sicker than it already is.

Imagine lots of running mascar as you read this

Tara

Dawson

Yup, they saved Dawson’s buddy as mentioned above and promptly named her `Tara’ after everybody’s favorite feedlot shitpickle.  Who is Dawson?  Dawson is the cremello mare that Charles Michelle just had to have.  Somehow she ended up on the big truck as a HiCaliber horse and not a PB, aka private buyer horse, as four others were, so you can probably guess who is picking up the tab on the shipping, vetting etc.  We already know somebody paid $1000 for her.  Tara is a big recip mare that was in the same pen as her, who HiCaliber decided to anthropomorphize and say was `BFFs’ with Dawson.  That’s an angle that HiCaliber likes to use on the village idiots because most of them don’t realize that horses are herd animals and they will usually attach themselves to other horses in stressful situations.  Any other horse.  If they hadn’t bought Tara, Dawson would have become BFFs with whoever shipped in the stall beside her and Tara would have found another object of her affection.  What actually turned out to be the case was that Becky wanted her so congrats village idiots, you just bought the horse hoarders yet another horse for way too much money. Who pays $900 for what appears to be an unbroken recip mare?   I think the happy couple has more than 10 or 12 horses between them currently living at the ranch on the donor dollar after all this.  It’s hard to keep track with all the comings and goings and $1 purchases.  I’m sure glad that volunteers are giving up their time and efforts to take care of Michelle and Becky’s personal horses while they cook up testicles and drive around the neighborhood delivering Fireball to unsuspecting people.

I need to backtrack a little to the loading shenanigans.  Satan Tara and the felon were nowhere to be found.  Apparently, convicted felon Jacob got permission from his parole officer to take a little vacay and the deadly duo took off to gamble away some of their HiCaliber windfall and have disgusting celebratory relations while rolling around in pork rinds and sticking Thrive patches on their unmentionables.  This left Cheech Dana to organize the load out and decide which horses went where.  Not only did she have to constantly ask the haulers which horse was which (even though they had never seen these horses before) she thought she had sent 13 on the trailer when there were 14 and nobody picked up on that error until after they were unloaded in California.  Kinda makes you wonder about the paperwork on them all, but so did the last minute purchase of Tara and the off camera mutterings about her not being vetted yet. That also explains why horses had to be loaded and unloaded, rearranged and left behind all the while Romney or whichever HiCal red shirt is the cap lock abuser chimed in with their vast knowledge.  The screen shot above is a prime example.  Yes, do stuff a few minis in the aisles of a commercial transport because you didn’t learn a thing when you damn near killed the last load of overstuffed horses you decided to haul straight through in the heat.  Awesome.  Thankfully, KC Transport refused and the minis were left to either get on Cheech Dana’s trailer or another.  Who knows?  They are being super vague about Dana’s movements other than she’s got at least 5 randoms in her 4 horse trailer and still has no DOT#.  They mentioned several times that Dana would be laying these mystery horses over in El Paso, Texas for 12 hours on the way home.  This is an important piece of the puzzle because El Paso is home to Joe Rios.  Joe Rios is a kill buyer that David Misner aka Voldy regularly sells to and he has an auction house/feed lot in El Paso.  Seems to me that would likely be the one place that would allow a bunch of sick horses to unload and hang out for a day or so.  (Animal Angels Report on Misner, Chavez and Rios ).  Since they are not showing Dana loading out or even saying who she has onboard, any amount of swapping and fuckery could go on in El Paso and nobody will be the wiser.  Nothing will really surprise me at this point as very little of what HiCaliber does resembles anything remotely close to rescue lately.

So, with Cheech Dana on the way home, this should be the close of the Louisiana chapter.  Sadly, that’s not likely.  Beside the mutual admiration and the morphing into one another that seems to be going on with Double S Kill Pen and HiCaliber, there is the little matter of those TBs that they left behind from the original load.  If you recall, Satan Tara fast talked Romney out of the ones that were in good weight and she felt she could make some money on.   Romney agreed to allow Tara to rip her off by practically bending over and spreading her ass cheeks while committing to the horses left behind should they not find buyers on the Double S page.  They are all  listed with a `HC’ after their number which means HiCaliber is on the hook for those too.  The story from Satan Tara has changed quite a bit, but the video above pretty clearly outlines the initial agreement with HiCaliber.  I guess this means we can all expect a desperate fundraising drive with a shipping date, tears and emotional manipulation within the next week or so.  Good times!  My closest estimation is that should they go after these remaining horses, it will put the swindle into the 100k ballpark and still not a single invoice, receipt or even donation tally has been posted beyond the initial 2k down payment to convicted felon, Jacob.  That’s not even counting the kickbacks they are getting for referring private buyers or accounting for that.  There were 4 PB horses on the KC Truck not counting Michelle and Becky’s because they won’t be privately theirs until their vet work and feet are done and they find out if they are broke or not.

 

 

HiCaliberGrace

The latest load from Louisiana ended up all jammed together in the Price arena after being subjected to the triage situation. Well, at least the ones that are still at HiCaliber.  Because they have a magical SAA machine, apparently they don’t need to quarantine horses like normal barns so HiCaliber Grace, in the pic above, got whisked away to her new home the very next day and, by the comments and looks of things, gets to spend her quarantine standing on bare concrete.  I can’t even make this stuff up.  Yet another mare from the first load has already been sent off or is on her way to foster and who knows what others are coming and going.  HiCaliber Sully, seems to be still trying to die up in the barn along side other non quarantined horses that are being experimented on .   The original three or four mares `so pregnant they were about to pop’ turned into only one mare that was pregnant and she’s the one they already pawned on a foster home.  It’s anybody’s guess where they are going to stash the rest that are coming.  I have a feeling that the body removal guy might be extra busy this week as more room is needed.

I think that should bring us up to date on the Louisiana deal.  Not surprisingly the numbers aren’t adding up and Satan Tara and HiCaliber don’t quite have their stories straight.  It looks like there are two other horses floating around with HiCaliber’s name on them unless the extra two are the minis that they somehow convinced Baker Ranch they needed to buy because Tara was so `matter of fact’ when she lied about minis shipping to slaughter.  It’s really disappointing to see a place like Baker Ranch get sucked in like this.  Meanwhile the rest of us are still waiting to see these `several’ burned out tattoos, when so far there have been none.  There was one or two horses that had what appeared to be foxtail ulcers, not burns, which is a good thing for the horses but not such a great thing for HiCaliber who cried `wolf’ in spectacular fashion to kick off this fundraising drive.  I guess it’s not surprising considering that out of the 20 OTTBs that they originally got all the attention over, most turned out to be not OTTBs at all.  While their egos will never allow them to admit it, I’m thinking this latest stunt has backfired in more ways than people realize.  Too much attention isn’t a good thing when you only pay lip service to transparency, rather than actually practice it.  It really isn’t a good thing when you have pissed off so many people that know where the bones are buried so to speak.  Speaking of bones, there are a lot rattling in the closet and are getting really close to spilling out.  Until next time….

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Win Some, Lose Some – Buy Some, Shoot Some

I thought for today’s post, I’d branch out a little from the clusterfuck that has become #OTTB20 and maybe touch on a big part of the reason I felt the need to speak out about what was going on with HiCaliber.  There are many people who have been quietly tracking what has been going on with this organization as they become more and more brazen with their brand of `rescue’ for a lot of different reasons.  Personally,  I really don’t care if Charles Manson Michelle wants to be a vulgar piece of trash every time she comes on live feed. I get it.  That’s her`thing’ and part of the brand she has created for herself.  I actually kind of feel sorry for her that she’s so classless that she can’t suck it up and be appropriate when needed, but whatever.  Everybody needs a rallying cry and `Eat a dick!’ seems to be hers.  Again, not really my issue with HiCaliber.  Where my issue comes in is the horse husbandry or lack thereof.  The Munchausen by proxy syndrome these voiceless souls are being subjected to and the suffering going on in the name of rescue.  So, with that in mind let’s get things started.

 

Say goodbye to Flloyd.  He was just shipped 1700 miles from Louisiana on 3 legs to end up with a bullet in his head a week later.  All because Satan Tara, told HiCaliber that a simple $300 check ligament surgery would fix him right up, they thought it prudent to subject him to that long truck ride on 3 legs.  That’s what happens when you send in two morons to triage a load of horses.  I’m not saying he deserved to die of starvation and/or disease on Thompson’s lot, but the kind and compassionate thing to do for him would have been to take him to a local rescue to have him assessed and ultimately put down.  They didn’t even know enough to put support bandages on him for the ride.  Of course Michelle’s ego is such that she frames it as their vet agreeing with her that he was too far gone to keep alive; like she has some sort of special knowledge and insight to be able to see what anybody else with at least one functioning eyeball couldn’t have seen for themselves.    You don’t even need to be a horse person to see the clips of this poor horse trying to walk to know that he was crippled.  Nice call from the 30% vet .  She claimed she just had to buy `rescue’ these horses to so she could `tell their stories’.  She neglected to mention that they would be horror stories and mostly made up. RIP Flloyd, you sure deserved better.

The horse above was Phelps.  He is one of the latest to get a bullet in the brain.  At least he got a nice goodbye post from a volunteer that cared about him unlike so many more at HiCaliber that just get shot without a mention.  The tribute post is a bit vague, only making reference to sore knees, but as concerned horse people predicted would happen, there have been quite a few horses getting shot since the Louisiana clusterfuck came to fruition.  Any fool could see they had no place to stash an additional 30 plus animals and HiCaliber isn’t big on regular updates once the thrill of the save has passed.  This makes it easy enough to get rid of a few on the sly and claim they went to a great home if anybody does think to ask.  Despite being `Romney’s boyfriend’ and one she claimed to love, Phelps was on shaky ground by virtue of being a pasture ornament.  I didn’t see the horse in person, but I don’t find it a big leap that he was getting more and more stove up with no place to move around properly.  Arthritic horses generally do better when not confined.  RIP Phelps

HiCaliber Stanley was bought at auction on May 2nd.  Despite his wonky legs and sweet personality, he didn’t generate enough interest aka cash flow from the village idiots to justify keeping him alive.  He got the bullet at some point during the past few weeks along with another horse I can’t seem to recall the name of.  That makes me sad too, because I recall the poor thing, along with HiCaliber Stanley was only mentioned in passing.  No tribute post for them, they were just part of the frequent flyer pick-up from the body removal man.  RIP Stanley and RIP to your friend.

Just before dying

Reacting to his shot from robyn

HiCaliber bought Othello from their favorite kill buyer, David Misner, on Tuesday the 23rd for $300.  They said that he had him for a bit and had even put some corrective shoes on him, but the horse was still lame so he wanted him off his lot.  That is code for Misner can’t move him or make any money off him, so he gets HiCaliber and the village idiots to pay for the privilege of cleaning up his mess. Win/win for Misner since he saves on the cost of body removal AND he still makes money.  Sadly,  this poor horse could hardly walk but still got to endure a two-hour plus trailer ride back to the ranch so they could shoot him.  That’s not before Robyn, hit him with Banamine at the auction yard and then wondered why he was fussing and getting hives.  Seriously, what is it with HiCaliber and drugs, specifically Banamine?  It’s like they think it’s some sort of magic potion or something.  Maybe they own stock in the company that sells that and Rompun because they sure go through a lot of both. They drug the crap out horses and then fail to take that into account when it wears off that they had just masked much of the issue for the past several hours so of course things are going to look worse.  At any rate, as seems to be the norm lately, poor Othello was made to suffer more than normal before finally getting shot in the face by Charles Michelle.  RIP Othello.  You certainly deserved more respect.

HiCaliber Boyer

 

By no means was the above list complete as far as which horses had a date with the body removal man the past few weeks, but I think the point is made.  There are a few that seem to be on pretty shaky ground which will likely vanish over the next week.  This brings us back to the Munchausen by proxy issue.  I think most horse people can give shots and do a bit of first aid and maintenance work on their own.  I don’t really have a big issue with that either.  I do it myself.  Vets are expensive, I get that.  Where I have to draw the line is when somebody can’t accept their own limitations and lack of knowledge.  It is no secret that Michelle fancies herself a vet tech even though she has never actually produced any certification, just like she has never shown the euth cert she claims to have either.   She has stated she knows 30% of what any vet knows and has taken to performing some procedures on the rescue horses herself whether they need them or not.  The above clip was actually taken after the one below.  The horse in it was Boyer and he had only been bought at auction the week before.  In it Dr. Michelle informs us that you can’t brush or clean up horses that aren’t feeling well among other pearls of wisdom that nobody has ever heard of before.  The video clip I’m going to post below is even more disturbing. Boyer was made to stand in the aisle for days while Charles Michelle played doctor until it was too late to save his life.  The video is painful to watch as the horse continues to try to make himself comfortable and Michelle continues to think he’s straining to pee and not giving much weight to the colic that was playing out right in front of her.  For somebody that gets off on strutting around with a stethoscope draped around her neck, I’ve never actually seen her listen for gut sounds or even reference that.  (watch her to start doing just that in the near future as she is an avid reader of this blog).  This went on for literally days until the horse was hauled into the clinic where he died a few days later. He was only brought to the clinic because they were bringing in another colicing horse that ultimately died too. (#HiCaliberPraline) Necropsy results were never shared as promised but this all came about during a time when they lost a handful of horses to colic over a few weeks and they also had a strangles outbreak at the ranch.  As you can see in the video, no quarantine measures or biosecurity measures were being practiced with these horses being fresh in from auction.

Shara July 2016

Shara July 2016

Shara’s left hind March 2017 after treatment from the 30% vet

The horse featured in the  second part of the above video, Shara, also died soon after that was filmed.  Unlike Boyer, she did not get to go to the clinic but ended up under the blue tarp with a bullet in her head instead.  She had been at HiCaliber since the previous July but somehow ended up with her foot sloughing off while Dr. Michelle practiced doing a regional limb perfusion on her rather than let a vet handle things.  Note the heavy sedation and IV bags at the ready.  Dr. Michelle loves to hang those jugs.  There never really was an explanation as to how she got this way or how long she’d been like this.  The only logical explanation is that nobody noticed until things became glaringly obvious.  Michelle, herself, is not known to lower herself to do chores or look at horses that she can’t play doctor with or heave herself up on.  I don’t even blame the volunteers that do the feeding as many of them only know what they have been taught by the HiCaliber red shirts and we haven’t seen a lot of evidence of horsemanship from any of them.

I’m sure to the volunteers or anybody that really hasn’t spent a lot of time around horses and vets, that Charles Manson Michelle seems really knowledgeable.  She likes to spew a lot of jargon and jargon can be impressive to a neophyte.  Where it gets funny is that she never quite gets things right.  I know she attended a one or two day info course at UC Davis and won a vet book, so that should qualify her to do all sorts of procedures, but she must have been sleeping when they came to the part about how to pronounce words so you don’t sound like an asshole.  It actually took me a bit to understand wtf she was talking about the first few times I heard her say `knee crawpsee’ or who the hell `Annie B Otic’ was.  Turns out she meant necropsy and antibiotic.  It’s not really all that big of a deal if you don’t mind sounding ignorant though.  I totally got confused when she kept talking about the horse Saint getting `chiro’ on his feet.  I know a chiropractor can work an entire body, but it didn’t really make sense considering that #HiCaliberSaint is known to have a form of canker in his feet.  That’s when it finally dawned on me that she meant cryo as in cryotherapy, which has nothing to do with chiro, although I suppose you could have both if you were so inclined.  I shouldn’t be surprised about that either because more than once I’ve seen them spot a horse at auction that had cryo marks on it, only for them to proclaim it had been pinfired and raise the alarm.   What this is a prime example of is a little knowledge being a dangerous thing; especially when there is a never-ending supply of banged up horses to live out your fantasy of being a vet and a captivated village just itching to hand over their social security checks.  HiCaliber is rapidly becoming a shop of horrors and not the fun kind.  There has been rumblings that Dr. Michelle performs rectal exams on horses as well as her own necropsies.  They have recently admitted to harvesting reproductive organs to sell for some studies and there was some allusion to selling bodies to big cat sanctuaries or zoos as long they knew the history horse for a length of time.  What horse at a rescue should die of a bullet that hasn’t been on meds of some kind?  What legitimate rescue would shoot a perfectly healthy animal?

HiCaliber Sully

Dr. Michelle at it again

Practicing biosecurity HiCal style open tack compartment ready to go to the parade.

HiCaliber Sean

 

I figured I should briefly touch base on the survivors of the Louisiana debacle as they are providing Dr. Michelle endless opportunities to wear her special scrubs top and to experiment with things she has googled or read in a book.  Because taking a cross country trip stuffed in a tin can in 111 degree heat wasn’t enough to put a horse through for one week, they figured now would be as good a time as any to geld the colt that just got in from Louisiana a few days ago.  They mentioned on live feed that they were going to let the mares settle a bit before preg checking, presumably because an ultrasound is more traumatic than getting your nuts cut off.  I don’t have nuts myself, so I really can’t say.  Maybe they were hungry and needed the balls for dinner again or something.  While this was going on, HiCaliber Sully seems to spend the majority of his days drugged to the point of staggering while the 30% vet hangs endless jugs on him and hits him with Banamine.  Presumably, this will make up for the non-existent refeeding program that is going on.  They like to claim that they follow the UC Davis refeeding protocol, but given the fact that the horses are in large groups in pens, it’s pretty much a fight it out situation for their feed and impossible to monitor what any one horse is getting or that he is eating enough and as often as need be. Don’t be surprised to see horses continue to crash in the next week or so and look for Dr. Michelle to blame it on shipping fever and blow it off as a `fail forward’ situation.

It looks like my prediction about the third and future loads being not exactly transparent was correct.  Becky and Robyn tried to make it sound like Dana was not on her way to Louisiana, but it was mentioned on a later feed that more horses were loading out from Louisiana on Friday. Bubba Misner is still unaccounted for and we know Thompson has a truck headed this was  too, so look for the next bunch to show up any time between now and Monday and expect them to not be in great shape.  Sadly,  despite already sending a few from the first truck out to foster, they don’t have nearly enough room for the 14 plus horses that are headed this way, so more ranch residents will likely be getting the bullet soon.  Maybe the removal man gives them frequent flyer perks or has a twofer Tuesday program for HiCaliber.  After all, he is a great guy and practices humane removal according to one of their resident parrots whose main function is to live on the live feeds and regurgitate everything that falls out of Michelle’s gaping maw.  I’m completely curious as to what `humane’ removal looks like vs. inhumane removal.  I wish they were as concerned about humane treatment of their living animals as they appear to be about their dead.

I could probably write several thousand words more about the chicanery going on at HiCaliber these days, but I think most people get the point.  It’s actually hard to believe that people are this evil and/or dumb.  How do you experiment with medical procedures on another living creature and how does somebody that purports to care about horses, shoot so many right in the face on a regular basis?  I swear Charles Michelle is actually pretty upbeat after she gets to shoot something.  Despite showing some random pictures of xrays without names on them, there still isn’t really any transparency getting practiced at HiCaliber.  No receipts or invoices are ever posted, so the cost breakdowns are just whatever numbers Charles Michelle pulls out of her ass.  I’ve paid a lot of vet and feed bills and I can assure you that they very rarely ever end up being a nice round number like she constantly claims.  I realize that HiCaliber has adopted the policy of deleting any comment or question that they deem to be negative aka anything that sheds a light onto their dubious horse husbandry and financial practices.  That isn’t transparency any more than buying from a kill buyer is rescue.  Because of all this and more, I just can’t sit on my hands and allow this to pass without comment.  Hopefully, other people feel the same and will begin to feel safe enough to speak out.  It’s time to speak up!

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How’s That Transparency Working Out For Y’all?

Well, here we go again…  I had hoped that things in California would have simmered down over the weekend or, at the very least, they had maxed out on bad decisions and maybe run out of bullets, but no joy.  Sadly, Charles Manson Michelle has actually topped her own past record of assholery and poor choices and once again, horses are paying a heavy price.  As a result, I feel compelled to at least recap the fuckery that passes for horsemanship at HiCaliber.  You may want to grab something a bit stronger than a coffee to wade through this mess.

 

We last left off with HiCaliber resident Dana, who puts the `high’ in HiCaliber,  headed to Louisiana, with her 4 horse stock trailer, to pick up some of the remaining horses from Satan Tara.  The village idiots were promised a `freedom walk’ and live feed of the load out and that’s where the latest round of lies began.  Unsurprisingly to everybody BUT the village idiots, the load out was not shown, not even on a hastily deleted live feed.  The official reason was that there was nobody there to help Dana and her accomplice 2nd driver, but once again, they forgot to get everybody on board with the official line of bullshit, so Satan Tara basically discredited the whole thing with one post.  I don’t think anybody really believed that Satan Tara, would allow them to wander around and load horses on their own anyhow.  There was no more video of the lot probably because the hay that had been set out for the Romney videos was no longer in situ.

So yeah, the lies started early on in this adventure and so did the fuckery because you’ll notice the mention of the animals already foaming at the seams with sweat after loading mentioned in the video posted above.  That’s kind of important because for reasons I can’t fathom, they decided to cram six horses into a four horse bumper pull.  I probably shouldn’t be all that surprised because it’s not the first time they’ve pulled that stunt.  I believe the claimed that weak horses need support when they did it with nearly disastrous results last year for the infamous `slaughter 11′.  One of the loose horses in this latest load was a stud colt and they couldn’t even get a halter on him prior to loading.  We probably don’t want to know the chaos that ensued getting him loaded in after all the others in that heat and humidity.   I think he’s the same one that Romney informed us all was `chill’ because he was in a pen with a bunch of mares and not acting studish. It probably hasn’t dawned on any of the HiCaliber brain trust that was likely because he had already settled them.  At any rate he was crammed in the trailer too tight to do much more damage and Dana informed us that the Palomino mare was `super dehydrated’ BEFORE they stuffed her in the trailer.  That’s ok though, because the 30% Vet, Michelle informed us on another live feed that they give the horses Gatorade or whatever is cheap and on sale as electrolytes.  I know some people think that’s a thing but Gatorade really doesn’t have enough electrolytes in it for a horse.  Show horse people only use it to flavor the water so horses will drink away from home and since it’s highly doubtful that Tara even fed them after Romney left, I’m willing to bet she wasn’t flavoring their water with Gatorade so that they’d drink on the way home.

I’m not really sure who all to blame this hellish trip that these poor animals were subjected to.  We already know that Dana isn’t really a professional hauler and it has been said before that she learned nearly everything she knows from Michelle.  She doesn’t even have a DOT# and is technically an illegal hauler.  I’m only guessing here, but I’m pretty certain she took all her marching orders on this trip from the alpha mare back home.  Regardless, somebody made the absolutely moronic choice to not lay these animals over and, instead,  keep them on a trailer for at least 50hrs.  We don’t have an exact time stamp because there was no loading video and there was, as expected, no unloading video.  We just know that the horses left the Thompson lot at some point before the sun went down in Louisiana on Friday, May 19th and didn’t get to HiCaliber until just before dark on Sunday, May 21st.  The reasons given were that they were stopping every hour for water along the way.  Personally, I’d have run at night with them and kept moving to get some air circulating rather than overstuffing them in a tin can and letting them bake in the sun, but that’s just me.  What is not in dispute is that those six horses suffered a ride every bit, if not more, miserable as any horse being shipped to slaughter endures courtesy of HiCaliber.  Don’t believe me?  It just so happens a concerned party encountered them along the way.

Note trailer size

Sent from just outside of Yuma

Sardines in a tin can

Hi Dana and Patti!

Yikes! That’s warm!

I know, I know, the village idiots will say that this is all a set up with the temperature reading etc.  Still pictures and all.  Way ahead of them though… Enjoy!

That’s about all we know about the trip home because there were only the two live updates and then the candid ones.  The next time we see the six victims is back at the ranch where they all appear drugged to their knees and Michelle is playing doctor with them again.  I guess calling in a real vet to assess and treat them would eat into her personal slush fund too much so she got to hang IVs on two horses that were threatening to drop even though her magical SAA machine assured her that their blood was `beautiful’.  I guess we shouldn’t be worried that they were parked in the middle of the barn aisle with other ranch horses because Michelle was wearing surgical gloves so that meant that all biosecurity issues were taken care of.  Apparently the wearing of the gloves also meant the horses standing right close by in the arena were safe from all the airborne bugs flying around from the new arrivals too and the dogs wandering all over wouldn’t ever spread disease either. We had to sit through basically all the same drawn out crap the last group of horses were subjected to.  Hitting them with enough Rompun that they couldn’t keep their heads up, blamming with dewormer and a bunch of other procedures that could wait until they were rested and stable both satisfied Michelle’s equine version of Munchausen by proxy and ensured she wouldn’t have to bother with them again until the next load comes in unless one needs to be shot in the head.  Inside information says that Michelle is adverse to lowering herself to actually doing chores regardless of how shorthanded the feed team gets, but I digress.

I really have learned some interesting things over the course of the past week or so.  For instance, thanks to Michelle, I now know that you can tell if a mare has ever had a foal just by looking at her titties!  I also never knew, until more than one HiCaliber gunsel proclaimed, that every horse with a bridle path is broke and has recently been ridden.  This came as a huge shock to my  own hay burners who always have their bridle paths trimmed and mane pulled because I prefer that they don’t wander around looking like they just got drug in off the range.  From the time they are halter broke until the time they leave this earth they are groomed and a bridle path is no indication of their training level or if the fat buggers are currently being ridden.  It didn’t dawn on any of the village idiots  that many of these horses likely weren’t emaciated until they got to stand around the Thompson shit pile for weeks with nothing to eat.   Of course it didn’t considering that Thompsons carefully staged any pens that would be shown on video strictly for the  HiCaliber cameras.  I guess all the advocates that have been tracking and gathering evidence for years, are just imagining things too.  With each new day the unholy alliance of Satan Tara and Charles Manson Michelle deepens and even more horses are at risk under the guise of saving them.

Other pearls of wisdom I picked up during the live feeds was that one does not have to worry about strangles or EHV-1, but it’s worth risking an animal’s life to make sure that no parasites are on the property.  (The recent outbreak of EHV-1 in Louisiana was traced to Thompson’s feed lot btw.)  Also don’t you know that Michelle has a VERY close relationship with the vets she uses and she’s even allowed to call them after hours and text them, which is why we don’t see much of them lately on live feeds.   Until today, I wasn’t even aware that having contact details for your vet was out of the ordinary, so thanks to Michelle I now realize how close me and my vet really are and I’ll be eagerly awaiting my invitation to Sunday dinners from now on.  I also learned that horses in Louisiana must have different teeth because they are all worn down apparently and that Banamine makes horses sleepy.  That last one was shared by a villager who must think Banamine is the horsey version of Diluadid or something.  These live feeds are really so educational AND entertaining.

 

All this having to do stuff seems to be really wearing on Michelle and it is becoming customary to get live rants after intakes.  While not as glorious as the meltdown of a few days ago, it was still fairly interesting to hear Charles Michelle rant about how unfair it is that people are disgusted with what has been going down lately (I’m paraphrasing here) and then listen to her lay the groundwork into morphing into doing what Satan Tara does instead as long as she could keep her non-profit status. When she wasn’t dropping f-bombs and trying to project everything onto her volunteers, she took the time to praise Tara  and then tells us that she is becoming `anti-rescue’ because the kill buyers are nicer and more respectful than other rescues. Hmmm, why do you think that is, Michelle?  She claims to be embarassed to be called a rescue and doesn’t want to be called that anymore.  Personally, I think I can get on board with not calling her a rescue.  To be honest, one rant tends to bleed into another and I kinda fell asleep with this last one, but she feels that somebody has infiltrated her volunteers, but that doesn’t matter because she has nothing to hide apparently.  Hmmm….

 

Embarrassed to call herself a rescue

One of the things that was said during the rant was that Michelle hopes that with as much money as they bring in every month she hopes that somebody is making sure that it is being spent right and wisely.  Ok then…let’s talk about lying some more.  Let’s talk about an earlier rant that touched on how much everything cost including the meds these horses needed and that Michelle begged for money saying that a 250ml bottle of gentamicin costs $250.  That’s the problem here.  The lies have gotten so big they are laughable and tiresome.  How are people suppose to keep overlooking this crap?

Speaking of Floyd, let’s get back to these poor animals from Louisiana.  Floyd is the one with the wrecked leg that they made ship across the country to probably end up with a bullet between the eyes all because Tara told Romney that he just needed a minor little check ligament surgery for a few hundred dollars and then he’d be good as new.  Romney, who is still learning what the different colors of horses are, just ate it right up and put this poor horse through what amounts to torture.  I don’t think you have to be too smart to realize that he was in pain and continues to be.  Then you have Hazel, another one of the first load who is emaciated.  That didn’t stop Tara from getting her ridden for the sale videos and now the poor thing is being subjected to whatever the hell this bandage job is that appears that somebody is actually trying to give her a bandage bow or worse.  The scary part is, is that the 30% vet thinks she knows so much she’s the one training her `medical team’ to do this sort of shit to horses.  It is borderline cruelty.

While we’re on the subject of the horses, and really that’s why we’re all here hopefully, let’s get back to quarantine discussion.  We already know that the horses that shipped together were all put in a pen together.  Michelle is strying to ship out a pregnant mare to spread her germs elsewhere already and the truth is, there really isn’t a proper quarantine area at HiCaliber anyhow.  At the beginning of her most recent ranty video, she tells a volunteer to put the  newly arrived stud in pen #20 and the rest in 39.   Here is a map of the pen layout at HiCaliber and pen #20 is on stud row right in with a bunch of other horses that are not in quarantine.  They are so over stuffed horses are living in round pens at the moment.

Also, because there are still something like 16 horses coming, the body count is rising with Breen, Phelps, Stanley and a couple of others getting the bullet in the head in last week or so.  HiCaliber have often stated they don’t announce all the deaths.  How is that transparent???  They also fudge some of the adoption announcements because Rhys, was adopted by a HiCaliber resident and remains on the property living in pen #17 getting fed the good stuff on the donor dollar.

The other day Michelle mentioned that a horse called Saban had gotten aggressive and started biting and that poor bastard got The Fice.  Andrew Fice was a trainer they sent their `fuckheads’ to until people started freaking out about his methods.  He has zero riding skill to the point that he was excused from the Norco Colt Breaking Challenge for being too rough on his horse.  Even so, Michelle had zero fucks to give what people thought about the Fice until he decided to make fun of autistic children and it was revealed he had done prison time for beating the shit out of his ex girlfriend.  Then, in the interest of public relations, HiCaliber appeared to withdraw their support of him and brought one of the horses home.  Novalee.  The gelding Rojas seems to be missing in action as he doesn’t appear to be at Fice’s and they never mention him although he is on their adoption list.  Hopefully, he’s alive somewhere and has found a softer landing.  My main question is why hide that Fice bought these horses for $2 for the pair if he’s so super awesome and you don’t care what peope think?

So much for `failing forward’, which is one of Michelle’s favorite catch phrases when she gets caught with her proverbial ass hanging out.  I guess it wasn’t enough to subject six poor souls to baking in a tin box for 1700 miles, it looks like the Cheech n Chongmobile is going back for more.  This is despite Michelle claiming on a live feed they were sending an air-conditioned rig for the rest.  Perhaps the good ride is just for the horse she bought for herself or maybe she meant poverty A/C though, where you roll the windows down and drive really fast.  I’m sure the horses will totally appreciate that along with their frequent Gatorade stops in the boiling sun.   Given the total shit show this entire endeavor has become, don’t hold your breath for any live feeds or much information at all.  One thing is almost certain though; we aren’t likely to see any invoices or vet bills posted for any of this.  What truly sucks about this is that they know damn well this is an illegal haul, Dana knows it (confirmed by calling her dumb ass and asking her) and still they go ahead and do it.

 

 

I think this is as good a place as any to wind things up for today. I apologize for bouncing around so many different issues, but there are hardly enough hours in the day to stay on top of all the grifting going on and these bitches seem to want to live on live feed.  Despite the massive overcrowding and having no quarantine pens left with more horses still to come from Louisiana, the HiCaliber team is headed off to auction today to buy more horses from their favorite kill buyer, Misner.  Once again the village will be asked to dig deep and cough up their lunch money, college funds and rent money without ever once seeing an auction slip or invoice.  Once again, more horses will likely die to make room or get shuffled off to people like Fice for $1, never to be heard from again.  The village idiots tend to lose interest once the purchase is made.  I think the above screen grab pretty much says exactly the mentality that we’re dealing with.  I’m not sure anybody that has seen this blog, whether you hate it or not, could ever think it’s a front for the slaughter movement.  However, I guess when you’re convinced that what HiCaliber is doing is rescue and that Satan Tara Sanders is one of the good guys, it’s not so hard to get pretty upside down about which side is which.  No hunty, I’m distinctly anti and that is a big reason why this blog has put HiCaliber on blast.  The blurred lines and misinformation they spew is making the job of legitimate rescues and anti-slaughter advocates extremely difficult and enough is enough.  Until next time, folks…

In praise of Gary Thompson, horse killer

Gary Thompson and Michelle’s $1000 purchase.

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The Ladies Doth Protest Too Much

My, my, where to start today?  Just when I think I have everything current and caught up and maybe, just maybe, the HiCaliber Shit Show will simmer down for a bit, they say `Hold my Fireball’ and sink to new levels of fuckery. Actually, I think we blew past fuckery a few days ago and we’re breaking new ground now.  I need a new word.  Between the `Freedom Walk’ for the first 12 horses to arrive, a glorious meltdown on Charles Manson Michelle’s part, we have an amazing piece of fiction posted by the Cryer in Chief, Romney.  I figured I’d just get this stuff out of the way before the next batch of horses complete their journey out of the frying pan and into the fire.

HiCaliber Savannah

So, as mentioned above, the first 12 horses from Louisiana arrived in southern California in the wee hours of Friday morning.  Because the rig couldn’t negotiate the drive way at HiCaliber, the horses had to be offloaded in a parking lot nearby and reloaded onto smaller rigs, one of which belonged to Michelle.  That’s important because she took the opportunity to bitch about her truck some more and tell us how using it for HiCaliber business has ruined it so now she needs a new one.  She needs it for the rescue, of course, but it will belong to her.   This is usually how she manifests things she wants.  Whine about something and then say it’s for the rescue and whatever it is usually becomes hers within weeks.  I’m sure the dollars involved in this latest stunt were going to go a long ways towards making that new truck appear before people started asking questions and wanting some accountability.

No Burns!

Miraculously, all horses arrived alive, despite hauling straight through from Louisiana and being onboard for 28 or more hours.  It was probably closer to 30 by the time they started to unload.  They left before the sun went down in Louisiana on Wednesday and arrived at HiCaliber between 3 and 4AM on Friday morning.  A very long trip for some pretty fragile horses.  Lucky for them, they were in good hands until reaching California.

Practicing Biosecurity HiCaliber Style

Now, I ‘m not sure how many readers here have had the occasion to ship horses long distances, but I have both as a driver and as the person that kissed them on the nose and then met them at the final destination.  Always, always, always, there was some preparation to ensure they arrived healthy and I’m talking about horses in peak condition.  Little things like electrolytes before, during and after.  Soaking their hay en route and letting them get their heads down to rest.  Feeding a bit of oil before and after to keep things moving a bit.  Usually after a long haul, we walk them out and get them drinking for a bit and then just let them settle.  I guess I should have consulted Michelle at HiCaliber, because she has recently informed us she knows 30% of what any vet knows and decided to do the intakes on these 12 horses herself. This meant that these poor horses, a few of which literally staggered off that rig, had to stand around tied up in the barn area for upwards of FOUR HOURS after they had just traveled for over 30 hours.  They were offered water, but otherwise had to stand around while Michelle played vet and appeared to do everything within her power to ensure they would end up with colic.  This included dicking around measuring them, putting a weight tape on them and fiddle farting with her stethoscope.  For some reason only some got Exceed.  Maybe that was only for the ones that coughed the loudest or something.  I dont’ know, but she was muttering something about not having enough.  Apparently it was a surprise to her that these horses were coming or something.  Then, in an astonishing display of ignorance, she blammed them all with dewormer and many, if not all with banamine.    I guess she also wanted to mask any symptom of a gut ache when those worm loads started moving, so they are in serious trouble by the time the pain killers wear off.  Just to make sure she sedated a few because they weren’t all lethargic enough.  WTF?  I know of no vet or horse person for that matter, that would deworm a horse in such fragile health immediately after such a long haul.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  That poor little cribber mare she purchased last Tuesday got the Michelle intake treatment and here are her before and after pictures.  This horse only came off Misner’s lot on Tuesday and is a skeleton by Thursday.  Obviously a very sick and dehydrated horse presumably sharing a quarantine area with a bunch of other very sick horses.   I’m not sure how you could see a horse fail that quick and not be alarmed, but business as usual for HiCaliber.

May 16,2017

May 16, 2017

May 18, 2017

After all the hype about these 2O OTTBs that became not OTTBs and mostly not even TBs, obviously a lot of people tuned in for the live feed of their arrival.  Based on things that various members of the HiCaliber crew had said before and because they were still operating under the assumption that HiCaliber actually practice transparency rather than just pay lip service to it, there were questions as it was all unfolding.  There were questions about the length of time the horses were on the trailer and why they had not had a layover.  There were questions about biosecurity measures being taken as many of these horses had deep coughs and were leaking some pretty green snot from their eyes and noses.  Couple that with how lethargic they all were (also symptoms of shipping fever, which can occur in much less than the magic 34 hours Michelle ranted about), and that they had come off a large feed lot of disease on the other side of the country, these were valid questions.  Afterall, they were standing tied right outside the barn and two of the more fragile ones were given box stalls in the barn with other HiCaliber horses.  Michelle was overheard saying that it was ok because there was no nose to nose contact.  I guess the minimum 30 feet for proper quarantine against airborne bugs isn’t a thing in southern California, but she does have her magical blood machine that apparently predicts the future or something.  That’s not even counting her tromping around in Ugg boots that are perfect hosts for germs and nearly impossible to disinfect.    When people starting asking about the length of the haul and why no layover, Michelle lost her shit in the most glorious of meltdowns.  It was a three parter actually and it was as f-bomb, poor me, and no accountability laden as anything I’ve seen spew out of her lying lie hole to date.  Anybody that dared to ask a question was singled out as a hater and told that the HiCaliber Facebook page was her safe space and that she wasn’t having it.  So much for transparency!  The funny part is she was mostly pissed that people were asking why there were no layovers when they had been told there would be and she denied it.  Once again, the HiCaliber crew did not consult each other before lying.  Oh my!  LOL.

Michelle lecturing us on transpaency

F-bomb, blah blah, f-bomb

 

So, after this meltdown and the horses were finally allowed to rest, Michelle left to go hang upside down in her closet or do whatever it is that witches do in the daylight hours.  I think she mentioned something about getting her lashes done and hopefully her eyebrows drawn back on too, but I guess that’s her business.  The fun part was Romney took over the boss mare role and laid down an amazing work of fiction for the village to eat up and the rest of us to enjoy.  It’s been awhile since we had story time with Romney and I could almost imagine her slurping her wine, while breathing heavy and attempting to smise for the camera through her seven layers of mascara and kohl eyeliner.  Good times! Let’s break it down, shall we?

Well, at least it’s nice to see them embrace what this farce has been.  A scam.  It’s a start.  One of the HiCaliber go to deflections has always been to call anybody that dares question them or critique what they’re doing a `hater’.  I know Michelle has a whole decade of hanging out with horses but, believe it or not, some of us have a lifetime of being with horses and have actually paid the bills working with them without having to start gofundme accounts.  What a concept!  The first issue I have had with all of this from Jump Street, is referring to the original efforts as `OTTB20′.  They don’t even have 10 OTTBs and calling them `Argentinian’ doesn’t really count. It was always a marketting ploy.   Satan Tara, has long been known for making up breeds and back stories on horses depending on what she thinks a potential mark buyer wants to hear.  In this case, the players got played by a master.  The funny thing about these funds needed, is that they always end up as nice round numbers that end in 0 or 5 and there is rarely ever an invoice or receipt posted after the fact because it’s on to the next and they know the village idiots are easily distracted.  They also like to run everything through paypal so there is no grand total that their village can see.  It’s alway a take their word for it situation with these guys.  Calling this stunt a `rescue’ is a complete lie.  These horses, regardless of their condition. were purchased for very inflated prices from a horse trader.  They were never booked to go to slaughter.  Thompson’s lot has no contract and cannot ship to slaughter.  Their next stop out of there was not slaughter.  Period.

HiCaliber Floyd – shipped 1700 miles like this.

We do agree that this shit show began on May 11th, but Romney kinda glosses over things.  There was originally 16 alleged OTTBs offered for sale via Thompson’s Horse Lot and there was a picture shown of a horse with sores on her lip.  This got a lot of attention on social media and despite being asked to stand down and allow the local people to handle this so the person that did this to that horse could be held accountable, HiCaliber couldn’t resist the publicity and money skimming opportunity and got involved.  Suddenly, one or two horses became `many horrifically burned’ and abandoned by other rescues and OMG the truck was coming!!!  It also turned into 20 horses and we know the rest from a previous blog post. (The $40,000 Rescue Swindle )  The village raised over 40k, thought to be closer to 50k when all was said and done.  This was just for the first round of begging.

 

I guess Michelle is prescient because she knew about the additional 15 OTTBs on Monday when she asked for 30k on the Channel 10 News to rescue them. She had started feeling out the village idiots about going after them a day or two before. (Channel 10 News ) Jacob and Tara claimed they came in over the weekend, but it makes HiCaliber look less shady to say they showed up on Dump Your Horse Tuesday at the Thomspon Lot, so consider history rewritten in the Gospel According to Romney.  The only issue is that if they really had only come in on Tuesday, how could their blood have been drawn on Saturday like they claimed and vet work done because some of the group ended up on the first load out.  Something isn’t passing the smell test here and it’s not just the Thompson Lot.

Thompson’s Hell Hole

Really, it’s just a shit hole feed lot and not `THE NATIONS LARGEST FEED LOT’. Maybe they are the nation’s filthiest, but they’re not even the shadiest although not through lack of effort on Tara’s part.  I guess the exaggeration is for dramatic effect though, much like the crying and heavy breathing we are constantly subjected to.  Romney may think she was being compassionate for allowing the healthy and marketable horses to stay in Louisiana so that she could save ones that needed her more, but those of us familiar with Satan Tara’s antics, know exactly what went down.  She conned Romney into leaving the horses she could make some serious coin on and talked her into taking some that were in no shape to ship anywhere and, even if they did have a slaughter contract, weren’t worth a dime because they were so emaciated and sick.  Way to horse trade, Romney!  You just cleaned up their mess and paid for the privilege.

Really, nobody but the HiCaliber contingent was all the surprised that they didn’t end up with a truckload of burned lips and really only came home with one or two horses that had mouth ulcers.  The part about Kill Pen 10 being misprint is kind of a tough sell though.  They’ve edited the original gofraudme gofund me account several times, but they couldn’t seem to figure out how to edit it to Kill Pen 8 for accuracy?  It also gets awkward when they have another board member commenting and further confusing matters.  Don’t they have secret bat cave page where they can get their stories straight or something?

The 6k hauling bit is important, because as Michelle ranted about several times on Friday, they originally had a 10k donation towards hauling when they were still trying to tell people that all these horses they were bringing home were OTTBs.  One single donor, offered up the funds for one truck, but they neglected to tell the other people giving til it hurt this had happened.  Then, because karma is a bitch, apparently the donor was not amused with the bait and switch tactics and withdrew the funds for all but 2k as she did not want to support buying out or the kill pens.  Her interest was soley in getting OTTBs out of there.  Make of that what you will, but I can envision why this is making Michelle extra cranky today and it ain’t because the remaining horses have to haul cheap.

 

Did you catch that?  Shame on everybody for making them bring the horse with the alleged burned lip that started this all home.  Romney is learning to spin stories nearly as fast as SatanTara, but then again, she’s not new to the feedlot game either.  Notice how the cremello Michelle wanted just got absorbed into the group expense account as far as vetting, shoeing etc.  Apparently, I undershot the amount of horses Michelle personally owns and keeps at the rescue in my previous blog post.  This mare brings the total closer to 9 from what I have been told.  So, while Romney is shaming people for bringing the mare Zeva home, remember that there is something like 9 of Michelle’s personal horses taking up space and resources on the donor dollar and she’s not the only ranch resident keeping a horse for free there.  I guess it’s no biggie considering they keep bringing more and more horses in despite their lack of room so they never say `full’.

That’s right.  They are already brokering for Satan Tara and getting their kickbacks.  Kickbacks are awesome because they don’t have to account for them.  So, they get a cut on the three private purchases.  The private buyers are paying their own way and HiCaliber can even gouge them a bit for shipping and expenses.  Even better, they still got the village idiots to donate full price  for `responsible rescue’ ​on the horses they’re bringing home which leaves some good coin for the eyelash/Fireball fund.  No Romney, you don’t have 34 `rescues’ coming home, you have 34 horses you bought off a trader coming home and I have seen nobody question the numbers in the first trailer.  I think a lot of this is blowing smoke to deflect people from asking much about the third trailer which is rumored to be close to getting there and which nobody from HiCaliber wants to talk about.  I can’t say for sure other than what Bubba Misner was boasting about at Mike’s last weekend, which also indicates he knew all along there would be a full load coming home.  If that doesn’t pan out and come to pass, Jacob is advertising that he’s bringing a load HiCaliber’s way too, so I’m sure their new BFF can stuff any or all of the remaining HiCaliber horses on there and they can act surprised and paint either Jacob or Bubba as a great guy who saved the day.  I guess they really are transparent, because they are getting easier and easier to see through!

 

Ok folks.  I’m going to cut things off right here for now.  There are more details about the intakes, there are six more horses on the way and there are some other things that hit my inbox that probably need to be shared too, but they need to be vetted first.  I never really wanted to write a novel and I certainly don’t want to write one this weekend, so unless something other than the run of the mill shit show occurs let’s take a day or two and let all this marinate.  Remember that none of these horses ever asked to be exploited this way and they all deserve to live.  The sooner we can stop funding these feed lots and faux rescues, the sooner this all ends for horses.  There is a better way, but you have to take away the easy way before people will listen.  Let’s do that.   I’m going to leave you with a quote from Romney before she reverted back to her old ways.

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Bait and Switch – Shaking Hands With The Devil

Before I get into what is likely going to be yet another long post, I need to do a bit of house keeping.  It seems that this latest shit show with HiCaliber and the profound zealotry of the majority of their village has caused some of them to escape the butterfly nets of Facebook and find their way over here. Welcome new people, please leave your Koolaid outside.  I don’t normally moderate the comment section or make people register to post, and I don’t want to have to start.  However, behave and be civil or you go bye-bye.  Just as simple as that.  I’m not here to write fiction and I’m not here to make friends.  My`style’ of writing isn’t for everybody and it’s not going to change.  If you have delicate sensibilities, you should probably click on by.  This is what works for me.   I’m also not going to discuss my genitals nor do you have to listen to me belching, chewing my cud or farting.  If you dig that sort of thing, then go back to HiCal and fill your boots.   Now, let’s get on with the latest chapter in the Great Rescue Swindle.  Before we get too far into things, I need y’all to read the screen shots I have posted below.  Just click on them to make them bigger. Read them and be clear on the dates.  I know it’s a lot, but humor me.  It’s important to the rest of what I’m going to write today.

The above screen shots were from a post outlining the official HiCaliber stance on kill pens up until last week. They even mentioned the SAFE Act and how important it was to end slaughter.  Sadly, their morals swing like their moods over there.  Nobody should really be all that surprised given some of their antics in the past.  If it has shock value and bumps those precious algorithms, then ethics are out the window.  You can read the last two entries on this blog to get up to speed, but where we hit pause was with Romney and Maloree flying out to Louisiana to catalog horses and the Charles Manson of Rescue aka Michelle, staying home to probably shoot a lot of horses in order to make room for the newbies.  In the midst of all that, she took some time out to give an interview to Emily Thode of Channel 10 News in San Diego.  Michelle talked about the 20 OTTBs without mentioning that they weren’t actually OTTBs and then she decided to fabricate the story that there is a huge illegal black market horse meat trade and that’s where all these poor horses were bound for before they decided to butt in.  FYI it is not illegal to ship to slaughter in Louisiana and there is nothing black market about it.  This is why advocates are fighting so hard to bring in the SAFE Act.  As she told us in a later live feed, you have to use what grabs attention and TBs seem to be the ones that makes people pay attention and bring in the money.  Apparently,  fabricating a mysterious black market works too.  We should believe everything she tells us though because she has a whole decade of being around horses to base her opinions on.  Here’s a link to the interview for shits and giggles.  (Channel 10 interview )

Because they have to keep their friendly neighborhood kill buyer, Bubba Misner, sweet, Michelle and her favorite ass barnacle had to shuffle off to the Ontario, Ca auction on Tuesday to buy even more horses despite the fact they are well over capacity.  It was a slow day, so she actually had to go to Bubba’s house afterwards to dig up two more to fill her weekly quota.  She wasn’t really amused that her village idiots wanted to rescue the sad cribber mare with an open wound over a pretty Andalusian mare which she told them she could turn over quicker.  Umm, is this horse trading or rescue?  You always hear them talking about their `general fund’ which is mainly topped up by the auction markups and the $650 over for `responsible rescue’ aka Michelle’s slush fund.  That’s why it’s pretty rare to see them come home from Tuesday auctions with any less than six horses. This pit stop was after they had already purchased a gray mare from Misner at auction for $700 and pretended they didn’t know who they bought it from.  It was the same gray mare he paid something like $410 at Mike’s auction two days earlier. She was really in nice shape and kinda pretty, so not exactly sure why she needed to be rescued for that price and why they went so high for her other than maybe Bubba’s feelings were hurt that they bought so many horses from Louisiana.  At any rate the mare was a bit funny about having her head handled and Michelle seemed afraid of her so I’m sure she’ll find a reason to shoot her soon or shuffle her off to Andrew Fice to get the crap pounded out of her.  Pretty sure the cribber mare isn’t long for the world either as Michelle acted pretty disgusted by her.  I would suggest a person go over to their FaceBook page and ask for updates in a few weeks but they have removed their visitor comment section along with their ratings so it might be a bit tough.  They’re really transparent though!  Just ask them.

The $700 Rescue Horse still cheaper than the Louisiana horses

Meanwhile, back in Louisiana, we have Romney firing up the  live feeds for some serious drama and mascara leakage.  It is her first time in Louisiana so she is quite shocked to find she’s not in the swamp or down on the bayou and that people have nice farms.  No, I’m not talking about the Thompson shit hole, but regular people who aren’t bottom feeding douchenozzles.   She seemed genuinely disappointed that the place isn’t crawling with gators and people don’t look like they stepped off the set of Duck Hunter.  Not to be outdone by her purple haired counterpart back home, Romney immediately starts spinning some whoppers of her own and dubs Thompson’s Horse Lot `The Biggest Kill Pen in America’. This is before she actually gets there and, for the millionth time, they don’t actually have a contract to ship for slaughter nor do the major players want to mess with Jacob and his cattle rustling ass either. However,  never let the truth stop you from firing up your armchair army and getting them to hand over their lunch money in record numbers.  Give til you’re homeless!  BTW, the only way you could consider Thompson’s a kill pen is because yes, that is where horses go to die because they make a habit of not feeding them or doctoring them. That is a whole other issue we’re going to deal with at another time.

What grown woman actually films themselves crying?

It’s time to get down to the bait and switch.  For the past few days, HiCaliber has been testing the waters and gauging village reaction into getting even more horses than the original 20.  What I need people to realize is that Tara Sanders, who is Jacob Thompson’s bunk muffin, has a huge following of loony tunes all of her own. She is a stone cold liar who has caused countless horses to die in the most horrific of conditions, and I am not referring to shipping to slaughter.  She is also very charismatic.  Romney never stood a chance and was completely suckered within about 5 minutes.  Besides the charisma, Tara talks super fast and she was swapping horses in and out before Romney and Maloree knew what hit them.  So, of your original 20, Tara told them that six had other offers before they bought them so let’s just switch them out with ones that need help more.  In other words, Tara swapped out the ones in decent  weight and that had ridden well for some really skinny and sick horses and a few pregnant mares.  BTW, no such thing as a line back red dun in the TB breed, but whatevs.  Basically, HiCaliber paid $1000 per head for horses that would have been rejected at any sale yard.  However, never let it be said that southern charm is dead because Tara bought them lunch with their own money after screwing them over during round one and because the HiCaliber gals can’t live without being on live feed, they decided to do a live feed Q&A  with Satan Tara so people could ask the friendly neighborhood bottom feeding horse trader and her crash test dummy test rider anything they wanted.  Sadly, the Q&A was basically an hour long platform for Tara to pull some lies out of her ass and for Romney and Maloree to get further seduced over to the dark side.  It was gross and any time somebody asked a real question, Tara deflected and wouldn’t answer, instead spewing some self-help rhetoric.  She should realize, however, that some of us fact check, so if she did ever have 80 horses in training the two years she was a licensed trainer, she totally sucked or she’s lying . Unfortunately for her, Equibase does not lie.  It also doesn’t count horses the horses she lead over for her father as her own.

At least they bought lunch before screwing the HiCal gals.

Stellar!

After a quick check of the gofraudme  gofundme  and paypal accounts, the ladies who lunched scampered back to the yard to get ready to triage and load some horses.  They also attempted to pick out some more who get to be `saved’.   This is where numbers and horses started flying around super fast and this is where the grifting got real.  By design, it was nearly impossible to keep track of anything.  The original 16 OTTBs with many burned out lips, which became 20 OTTBs with some burned lips, was down to 14 randoms with 4 burned lips.  Then add in the new load of TBs that had come in over the weekend. They originally said there were 15 OTTBs, but somehow those morphed into 10 Argentinian polo pony broodmares with no tattoos and maybe some are other breeds and, oops here’s a Pintaloosa too.  Would you like some NFR horses with your order as well?  Somehow lost in the shuffle are the burned lip horses except for one or two or maybe only one. Are you keeping track?  No?  You aren’t meant to be able to because that’s how grifting works. The village idiots, took the cue from their fearless leaders and promptly lost the plot as various individuals started offering to buy several horses they caught a glimpse of on live feed. Others placed orders for horses they wanted and I was kinda expecting for somebody to order up a unicorn at some point.  You could almost see the dollar signs in Tara’s pupils as so many people lost their collective shit and clamored to buy horses from her.  The more excited they got, the more heart wrenching the made up backstories became and then the wheeling and dealing began.  Somewhere along the way, the additional 15TBs that Michelle asked another 30k from the village for, became the `kill pen10′  and even though some were sold to them for $500 and maybe less (I lost track), the `ask’ remained the same.  Tara even offered to throw in a few easy flippers in there for them so they could make some money back.  One of the horses she gave to HiCaliber for free because he had cancer and she wanted him to go to a good forever home.  Romney launched into her `compassionate euthanasia’ spiel, but it fell on deaf ears.  You know, because it makes a lot of sense to subject an animal to a cross-country ship to be met with a bullet in the head. (Protip Romney, he’s gray and he has cancer.  He wasn’t in any danger of shipping, just like so many of your `rescues’ back home you get people to pony up for).  Tara basically forced the horse on her and they better hope she continues to not give a shit because even though she is pro-slaughter, it seems she is not pro euthanasia.

Finally, the big rig from KC Transport shows up to take  some of these horses back to California. Overheard during the loading was Tara asking Romney if she planned to get hair samples for DNA once they got home.  Thankfully, the village idiots were so busy salivating and touching themselves they didn’t remember that HiCaliber claimed that they had pulled blood for DNA last weekend.  I’m not even sure how they had the right paperwork on these horses considering some were only bought by HiCaliber just prior to loading and were not part of the original 20.  Personally, I’m glad that at least 12 horses are getting out on that rig as they’ll likely arrive alive even though they are being driven straight through and that’s kinda dicey for some of them to have their heads tied up that long. They were a snotty and sickly looking bunch.  I just hope they have a vet standing there when they arrive.

KC Transport

As per Hicaliber, they have at least two more trucks coming for the remaining horses and they have confirmed that one of them is ranch resident Dana, who has a hauling business.  She was trying to find a load heading to Louisiana, but it turns out she doesn’t actually have a DOT# and nobody can seem to find her company listed as a LLC in the state of California despite the fact she calls herself one, so she’s probably going to have issues at the check stations.   She also basically has a stock trailer which is perfectly fine for a local haul, but not so cool for a cross-country trek.  I would suggest they put the more high-strung ones with her though because the rumored contact buzz they will be subjected to will likely settle them a bit.

The third trailer has been a bit of a mystery as HiCaliber has been a bit vague about it.  Ok, they’ve been a lot vague.  I can’t say with 100% certainty, but Bubba Misner aka Voldy Jr. was overheard at Mike’s auction telling people he had a load to pick up in Louisiana this week.  A quick call to Misner and Sons confirmed that he was indeed headed east this week.  So, for those of you that are a bit slow on the uptake; if that is true, the majority of the remaining horses are going to come across country on a slaughter truck being driven by a kill buyer.  They better hope that he doesn’t detour to his buddy Dennis Chavez’s lot in Belen, NM considering it’s not really even out of his way.  His truck might just naturally go there out of habit or something.  I know that  Michelle and Romney aren’t well acquainted with the truth, but part of the brutality of slaughter is the long rides on these rigs without food or water.  I don’t know what to make of a `rescue’ subjecting horses to this if this actually comes to pass.  I guess wait and see, but if you don’t see that third rig with your own eyes on live feed, I’d be asking to see the shipping invoices.

The Bubbamobile aka Truck 3?

After a long, hard day of horse trading and mutually admiring and complimenting each other, it was time for the ladies to take a last wander around the lot, so that Satan Tara could further push her personal agenda.  For somebody that claims to not pay attention to the haters and not be about drama, she pretty much made sure to address all the things people say about her and her feckless boyfriend, Jacob, who happened to mistakenly buy half a million dollars worth of cattle who all died right away, which meant his checks all bounced.  He was totally persecuted as an example and he just got tired of fighting to clear his name so he decided to live his life as a convicted felon instead. She also talked about how nobody should get a horse for free right before she gave HiCaliber a horse for free.  That would be the one with cancer that she can’t sell anyhow.  Some advocates were surprised that Tara was going to allow filming on the lot until we saw she was using this as an opportunity to pretend the horses are always fed by showing us feed in a few pens.  Romney obligingly whined that she didn’t want to walk all the way to the back pens to keep things looking legit.  One of the things that seemed a little scripted between her and Romney was the set up where Tara inferred that Platinum Ticket was standing on her lot.  For those of you that don’t know who he is, please take the time to watch this short trailer.  Yes, that is Jacob and Tara in this documentary.   Of course Romney had no clue what Tara was talking about but let her ramble and commiserated with her over the evil people who are behind this documentary cashing in on this horse.  Nevermind what Tara and Jacob did to this horse…

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/157236374″>Platinum Ticket’s Final Ride Trailer</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/animalsangels”>sonja meadows</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

I hope that video makes people angry.  THAT is what Tara and Jacob do to horses.  No, they may not have a contract to ship to slaughter, but that doesn’t make them any less disgusting.  Go back and read Romney’s long post about their kill pen policy of last year. Let that sink in and then try to reconcile how she made a deal with Tara right on live feed that Tara will give her a kick back for any buyer HiCaliber sends over. This was likely inspired by the village idiots converting to the dark side so easily and Satan Tara knowing a good thing when she sees one.  Fools and their money… Not to be outdone by the village, Michelle decided to buy a cremello mare for $1000.  That’s what she said on live feed anyhow.  Then she covered herself saying it had something to do with some YouTuber they visited today and bringing a horse to his studio next week or something. I’m actually guessing this will be a similar situation to the Fjords off the slaughter11 load where the donor dollars will pay for the horse’s shipping and vet work and should she be unsound or otherwise unsuitable, she’ll just let the rescue pay for the horse.  Even more probably she will let the rescue pay for the horse and buy it off the $1 menu as soon as she arrives alive.  I believe that will bring Michelle’s personal hoard herd up to about 7 living off  donated funds.  That’s quite a few horses for a person that claims they have no income at all.

Enter a caption

I’m sure there will be some people who will wonder why the outrage since these horses are getting pulled out of that hell hole.  Well, besides the 1700 mile trip with sick horses to bring back to a ranch that is in no way set up to properly quarantine them, let’s think about what is going to happen to some horses as they make room for them.  HiCaliber brings in horses at such a rate, that it becomes nearly impossible for the casual viewer to keep track of them.  Michelle, herself, has said they do not always tell people when they shoot euthanize horses because nobody likes bad news.   Even if she wasn’t doing that and had room for them all, this entire stunt has crossed the line from rescue to some form of brokering/trading and that sets everybody back a long ways.  They didn’t rescue 29 horses.  They bought 29 horses at pretty inflated prices and as soon as they pull away, there will be 29 horses there to take their place or maybe even more.  They seem more concerned about being respected by these lowlifes, than they are about ending slaughter and putting an end to feed lots like Thompson’s. I was ready to see Romney out-and-out declare herself pro-slaughter by the time Satan Tara got done with her.  She never once presented a counterpoint to all the BS that was being slung.  While she was busy throwing every other rescue under the bus, it never occurred to Romney why Tara doesn’t get along with them.   I shouldn’t be surprised, I don’t think they have figured out why they got punted out of The Homes for Horses Coalition or why ASPCA dropped them from funding either.  If slaughter really did end, then so would their gravy train.  In less than one week, they have managed to con their village out of close to 70k and they aren’t done.  This is an unholy alliance with Thompsons and there is going to be a lot of horses in trouble as a result and eventually real rescue are going to have to clean up the mess.  Stay tuned people, I feel things are going to get a lot worse in the coming days.

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The $40,000 Rescue Swindle

When I posted a blog a few days ago, I had in the back of my mind it would be a one-off and I could go back to my hiatus/retirement from blogging once I got it off my chest.  That is why I’m kinda irritated at the depth of asshattery and just outright fuckery going on with HiCaliber at the moment.  I normally don’t even care if people want to be asshats or if idiots want to give up all their coin to a scam artist.  Buyers beware and all of that.  However, the one thing that is going to light a fire under my ass every single time is when animals, specifically horses, are made to suffer due to these personality traits.  That’s what is going on right now with HiCaliber and it runs so deep and they have built up such a cult following, that one voice sometimes feels about as effective as a fart in the wind.  However, it’s no longer just one voice, it’s many voices and the truth is finally being revealed.  So, with that in mind, let’s break down the great 40k `rescue’ and shine the light on some facts.  It’s gonna be a long one, so buckle up…

As near as I can figure this entire mess started on or about May 11th, when a horse showed up at Thompson’s Feed Lot in Pitkin, Louisiana with a messed up lip.  She came in with some TBs and, all of a sudden, they were claiming the lip had been burned to hide her identity (there is still some question as to if this is actually true or wasn’t a tactic to garner sympathy by TMS).  As a result, this group of Tbs, which weren’t actually a `group’ so much as a bunch of Tbs and  random other horses that came into the feed lot around the same time, went viral.  I’m pretty sure it was the horse with the sores on her lip that pushed things over the edge.  She certainly seems to be the reason that HiCaliber got involved because they love publicity and this was getting a lot.  So, they started making noises about `maybe’ attempting this rescue.  This is where I need to make one thing very clear.  No matter what Tara Sanders says and no matter how much of a wannabe Jacob Thompson is, they do NOT have a slaughter contract.  What that means is that there was never a truck coming for those horses.  They are the lowest of the low-level horse traders and they don’t give a shit who buys their horses, but they do NOT have a contract to ship to slaughter.  When they say a horse will ship on such and such a date, that usually means they’ll be run through whatever backwater auction and you, as a private citizen, can go and buy that horse at the auction probably for a lot less than they will sell it privately to you.  It does not mean the horse is headed straight to Mexico.  What this also means is that when you buy a horse from them, you have not rescued shit.  You have bought a horse from a horse trader.  You may have upgraded the horse’s situation and prevented it from ending up in the pipeline eventually, but you are not rescuing horses by giving these people money any more than you rescue any other horse you go and buy.  Slaughter was not the next stop for any of these horses.  You are making convicted felon, Jacob Thompson rich and you are making sure he has money to buy even more horses which he won’t feed properly or look after at that junk heap property he puts them on.  I don’t know how much more clear I can be about this situation.

By early Friday morning, despite being asked to stand down and let the local advocates handle things, Michelle and Romney decided that the temptation of all this attention, not to mention the possibility of all those extra dollars to not account for was too much for them pass up and they sent a deposit on 20 horses which they promptly dubbed the OTTB20.  The problem is nobody knows which 20 horses as there were never pictures of 20 specific horses nor are these horses they are getting all OTTB.  In fact, not even half of them are even TBs. period.  They are basically going to get 20 solid colored horses.  Enjoy that little pay pal receipt up above because if past behavior is anything to go by there will never be a final invoice from Thompson’s as to what the real purchase price of these animals was, nor will there be a shipping invoice or vet bills posted.  Here are a few different cost breakdowns HiCal gave.  They encouraged people to donate through their PayPal so they could circumvent the fees, but mostly so that people didn’t have an actual total on how much was raised.  Nobody really knows what the final number was but, by their own original admission, they had raised at least 10k before they put up the PayPal asking for 40k and they still want more.

 

Can somebody tell me how spending close to $1000 a horse is rescue?  Do they honestly believe a horse worth that much would be offloaded for $200 on a slaughter truck?  They let their egos get the best of them and they got scammed by Jacob Thompson who is a convicted felon currently serving 10years probation for cattle theft, writing bad cheques and other shady shit.  Google him up if you want to know all the shitty things he gets into.  They just handed this sonofabtich 20k to go buy more horses or to pay his fines.  These are just a few of their little lies.  HiCaliber is now claiming that they were asked by local rescues in Louisiana to help out and pretend that they didn’t know about being asked to stand down.  Complete and 100% lies.  Before the gofundme was ever put up, they received and responded to the message posted below.  I would think anybody that truly cared about the welfare of horses would want to get on board with this request or, at the very least, not interfere with the wheels already in motion.  Instead, Michelle elected to throw Louisiana rescue under the bus, disregard this information AND help Jacob and Tara get these horses out of Louisiana before the authorities can get their ducks in a row. (Message was not sent by me, btw.  It was forwarded by a concerned advocate).

Some other lies they have told is regarding them being `asked’ to step in.  Aside from their village, who we all know are about as knowledgeable about horses as The Friends of Barbaro or Alex Brown crew, nobody really believes their shit and that any local rescues or anybody of merit asked for their help.   The village idiots eat it up because they are so invested emotionally, they don’t care that Michelle and Romney actually don’t know much about horses in general, but even less about Thoroughbreds.  I don’t think it would ever occur to any of them to actually fact check what HiCaliber puts out there or ask to see invoices and receipts.  So, to try to cover some tracks and make it look like they care about stopping this from happening again, they assure people the horses are good to go because they have had blood drawn for DNA.  The only problem with that statement is that the Jockey Club stopped blood typing in 2001 and has used hair samples ever since. (Jockey Club DNA Typing ). Highly doubtful that any blood has been drawn anyhow and Michelle was on live feed saying she cut off all communication with the person that was leading things down in Louisiana because she is Team Tara now.  I believe the real reason is that the truth and reality didn’t quite fit into her narrative and efforts to pull off a 40k stunt, but why let facts get in the way when you have a village of idiots that hang on every word you say?

They also have trouble naming these `other’ rescues that asked for their help.  I know of none of the Louisiana rescues that asked for their help and they won’t name one either.  Instead they prefer to deflect as usual.

Making a miraculous recovery from not even being able to see well enough to drive 2 days ago, Romney has volunteered as tribute to go out and catalog all these horses and supervise the vet work. This would be the same Romney that didn’t know the difference between a pony and a long yearling and thinks that any horse that so much as rests a foot is three-legged lame and stomping at flies must mean colic.  Even if she did know WTF she was looking at, they bought these horses sight unseen.  Tara and Jacob can round up any 20 horses off their lot and as long as a couple of them have tattoos, Romney isn’t going to be any the wiser and neither is anybody else.  Remember it originally was only 16 OTTBs, that somehow became 20 once HiCaliber became involved and then it was revealed that most weren’t even Tbs at all nor were they fresh off the track by any stretch of the imagination.  Not a racing plate to be found on any of them.  Way to go guys!  You just cleaned up Jacob’s lot of the ones he wasn’t going to be able to flip so easy and he can put whatever he wants in that lot because you were too stupid to get pics and videos and IDs BEFORE you went ahead and bought them.  Still, I get why it’s Romney going.  She’s somehow able to goop on more mascara than a drag queen to weep for the camera as she huffs and blows and acts out of breath.  Certainly a more sympathetic figure than Michelle discussing genitalia and raging for the camera.  People always dig deeper for Romney.  I can see it all now, as she wanders through the feedlot and acts surprised and then starts weeping for the camera while threatening to pass out as she starts huffing and puffing.  A variation of this scenario pretty much plays out each week at auction and the village idiots lap it up.  What I can’t figure out is the function of Maloree, an alleged trainer, that is also in for a free trip on the donor dollar.  From what I can tell, she doesn’t know how to tack up a horse or run a polo, but she’s somehow necessary to identify 20 horses nobody has even seen pictures of and decide how to proceed.  I probably shouldn’t be surprised considering other `trainers’ they have used in the past.  *cough*andrewfice*cough*

We’re supposed to pretend we don’t see the person behind Romney making sure she doesn’t get stomped while she pretends to know what she’s doing.

Just WTF to all of this? Trainer? Bitch, please…

One of the things I find disturbing about this situation, and there are many, is that one of HiCaliber’s buzz phrases is `Horses First – Always’.  I would like to know how this little ego trip of theirs is anything close to putting the animals first.  Are they really so arrogant that they think there is nobody on that side of the country that can save and rehab horses?  I realize that they are strangers to the truth and their story changes often, but if these horses are truly emaciated, lame and in bad shape, how is it in their best interest to ship them 1700 miles in the heat?  If they were truly about their welfare, then they would take those donated funds to help place those horses locally in any one of several competent rescues and fosters right close to where they are.  Michelle wants to take her show on the road to show other rescues how it’s done and here was her chance to do just that.  Make a difference, but instead, the publicity they were getting locally was just too much to give up, so they will risk the lives of these animals shipping them across the country instead.  Like Michelle said on live feed,  she’s a business woman and this is about supply and demand and her adopters want TBs.   I’m not sure why she can’t get OTTBs from SoCal race tracks or what’s wrong with the ones Bubba Misner finds for her, but I guess they don’t grab headlines.  Even better if one has a sore in her mouth that we can tell people is a burned off tattoo kinda like she told everybody that the horse with grass mosquito bites had cigarette burns.  Maximum drama = maximum donations.  Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.

What a difference a couple of years makes!

Oh yikes! That’s an inconvenient screen shot from a few years ago.  It was one of the few times she wasn’t lying.  This presents a problem for HiCaliber because if they say yes, these are for sure bought from a kill buyer they are either lying or  they are proceeding knowing that they are dooming other horses to the same fate.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since they work so closely with David and Bubba Misner  aka Voldy and Voldy Jr..  They love to tell everybody that they have taught them a new way of doing business and that they haven’t shipped to slaughter in over a year, but that is also a lie.  The Misners are often seen in New Mexico with their buddy Dennis Chavez.  In fact, Misner.  was seen buying horses with somebody else’s number in New Mexico not that long ago.  ( Belen, NM, 11/3/16 ).  In this case it was Misner Sr. so at least he wasn’t rocking the HiCaliber swag like his son Bubba, does when attending kill auctions.

Bubba Misner aka Voldy Jr at Mike’s Auction in California

As of this evening, news of another 15TBs on the lot has leaked out and HiCaliber has started making noises about getting them too.  Apparently, according to them, there are herds of feral horses roaming Louisiana and a booming black market illegal horse  meat trade that Jacob Thompson and Tara Michelle Sanders are supplying horses to.  At least that’s what Michelle decided to tell the channel 10 news tonight.  That was right before she told them she would need an additional 30k and giving their still open gofundme link.  I wish I was making that up.  I also wish I was making it up that she didn’t joke on an earlier live feed that she felt like having the horses with no tattoos that they just bought, swapped out for the 15 OTTBs that have just shown up.  You know what they say about many a truth being spoken in jest…The only stumbling block might be that in doing her little vanity interview she manged to throw Jacob and Tara under the bus and Jacob has already had his sorry ass thrown back in jail for a parole violation recently so it’s not clear how amused they’ll be to wake up tomorrow to learn they are now part of this mysterious black market horse meat trade in Louisiana.  Michelle knows a whole bunch about Louisiana despite never having been there and only ever having talked to Tara and Jacob.  I’m going to go ahead and say that Tara and Jacob’s Louisiana ain’t nothing like my Louisiana or anybody else I know.

THANK YOU TO THE READER WHO SENT THIS!  LOL

I think this is a good place to hit pause for today.  There is much more info I have piled up here that I need to organize before sharing.  Every single day this saga takes a new turn and it seems people are eager to be heard.  Next blog we’ll talk about the logistics of shipping 20 feed lot horses across the country and how that’s going to look.  Until then, don’t be afraid to speak up for what’s right.  The tide is beginning to turn.  Stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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When Good Rescues Go Bad

Anybody still here?  I know I’ve got some explaining to do and I may get that in another post, but it’s not all that exciting.  Short version is that I have the attention span of a gnat and keeping up a blog is a lot of work.  Keeping up one that is so close to my heart, is even more so.  So, shiny objects, life, boots on the ground etc.  will have to suffice for excuses for now.  The other issue is, as I’m sure you all know, Ole Suey fell off her perch and Douchebag Duquette skulked off to park his head up the ass of Forrest Lucas meaning the immediate threat from them was over.  I can’t claim mission accomplished, because none of that was my doing, but we kept the spotlight shining where it needed to be at the time and we got the word out.  Now, another issue has finally pissed me off to the point I have felt the need to resurrect this blog and address it.  It’s an issue we briefly touched on a few years ago and I fully admit, my position on certain parties has done a complete 180.  Are you ready?  Pull up a seat and let’s get into it.

So, while I have been busy not keeping this particular blog up to date, I haven’t exactly been living in a vacuum.  I’m still involved in the anti-slaughter stuff and I’m very well versed in the rescue wars that rage on and the kill pen brokers that continue to spin their lies at the expense of horses.  The more things change….However, when you have a high profile rescue with extremely questionable ethics and a notorious broker with zero ethics, joining forces, you have a perfect storm of fuckery and horses are going to suffer more than usual.  Dear readers, that is exactly what is going down right now as I write this.  HiCaliber Horse Rescue out of Valley Center, California has hooked up with one Tara Michelle Sanders from the Thompson Lot out of Louisiana and 20 horses are about to get royally screwed.  This means HiCaliber is about to get a lot of money to pay some bills and line their pockets.  Poor Tara doesn’t aim as high so she’s just going to get her regular exorbitant mark up.  I’m sure she’ll be fine though because she’s just tapped into a large village of idiots who live behind their computers getting their `high’ by saving horses online.  Of course they only get motivated with the last minute saves because real rescue doesn’t get them moist like faux rescue.  The background to this saga is the fate of 16 OTTBs that are allegedly on the lot belonging to Tara’s boyfriend and his father.  I say allegedly because only a few are tattooed and some are crossbreds.  This is pretty much business as usual for Tara and Jacob except one horse came in with an ulcerated upper lip.  They claimed it was a burned off tattoo from an off track TB and it may well be, but it also might not be as it looks suspiciously like the mouth ulcers a horse gets when they get into things like foxtails and there is no sign of ink between the two sores as there would be in a real tattoo.  So, not saying it is or it isn’t, but the fact of the matter is that one picture created a stink and generated a lot of attention.  All of a sudden a lot of people were very interested in these horses and that’s where the unholy alliance of Tara Michelle Sanders and HiCaliber Horse Rescue incubated.

HiCaliber Rescue out of southern California love nothing better than media attention.  They have been trying to get a reality show happening for quite some time and never miss an opportunity to get their name in the press.  They actually used to be a pretty decent rescue and this blog has even given them some credit in the past.  Sadly, somewhere along the way of the last few years, HiCaliber kinda lost the plot and rather than be all about the horses, became all about the money and the numbers.  They made a deal with a well known local Kill buyer, David Misner and his son Bubba and stumbled across a similar business model to Tara’s.  Tell your followers that death from slaughter is imminent for the horses you want and mark up the price so you got a little for your pocket…or a lot.  There are two main differences though.  The first is that Tara is getting rid of horses off her feed bill, while HiCaliber keep bringing more and more in to get warehoused on their small plot of land.  The other big difference is almost amusing if it wasn’t costing so many lives.  HiCaliber claim to be saving horses from slaughter, but they fail to mention that shipping to slaughter in Southern California is illegal, so them knowing that Misner aka Voldy intends to do that, they are actually turning a blind eye to illegal activity.  Organizations have begged them for their help in exposing Misner and the Ontario auction for covertly supplying the slaughter pipeline and they have flat out said they are not interested in shutting them down because that is their main source of horses and, as Michelle has often claimed on camera, she’s a business woman and she has to keep bringing in `product’ aka horses for her adopters or they won’t keep coming back.  So yeah, that isn’t exactly rescue and they are either turning a blind eye to somebody illegally shipping to slaughter or they are lying.  Take your pick.   Tara, on the other hand, openly threatens that the trucks are coming and horses are shipping but neglects to tell her followers that they don’t actually have a contract to ship to slaughter, so they are low level traders at best.  That’s not to say that some of their horses don’t end up at slaughter, but the trucks aren’t coming like they claim and none of them are really scheduled.  That’s just high pressure tactics and that worka for the at home adrenaline junkies refreshing their pages and flicking their beans over those last minute saves.  I’m sure they all need a good smoke afterwards.

 

Ok, let’s get back to the OTTBs that aren’t actually all OTTBs.  They have been and remain available to private buyers.  They are not ONLY available to HiCaliber as they are claiming to their followers.  As I type this, they are listed with videos and individual prices on the Thompson FB page.  Some are listed as sold and some are listed as sale pending.  They are not advertised as a lot and so far, Jacob and Tara have been quite amiable to selling to private no drama buyers.  I know this because I called them. However, somewhere along the line, HiCaliber got involved and are telling people that they have been told they MUST purchase all 16 horses and now there are actually 20 horses, so all or nothing.  This is despite the fact that HiCaliber was asked to stand down on their involvement as local groups and individuals were working behind the scenes to hold Evangeline Downs, the local racetrack, accountable in enforcing their no slaughter policy and getting these horses identified.  What good is saving 16 when so many more will continue to be in trouble because people continue to get away with this stuff?  Sadly, Hicaliber decided to get involved anyhow even though they know none of the players or anything of the situation in Louisiana.  Ironically, earlier in the day HiCaliber founder, Michelle, was on live feed talking about how financially strapped they were and she has been begging for a few weeks for somebody to cosign or donate a new truck to her personally.  Apparently the BMW she managed to get from rescue dollars is not good enough for her or something or her live in girlfriend’s truck is too good to haul the new trailer she also manifested a few months ago after whining about needing one.  She often says that you have to `go for the no’, meaning keep asking for everything until people refuse, and the village idiots are so invested in their interactive soap opera with them, that they are giving up their rent money in record numbers.  I find it pretty easy to connect some dots here, but maybe that’s just me.  Whatever.

 

Hopefully you can see the screen shots I posted above here.  These are from the Hicaliber Gofundme page asking for 40k to bail these horses.  Normally, I would go through line by line and break it all down for you, but I don’t have the energy.  I’m rusty with this stuff, so cut me some slack.  I will address some of the bigger lies they have in there though.  The biggest being that they are trying to lead people to believe they all have their tattoos burned off.  No, maybe one does, but only one.  Another horse apparently has his blacked out which is just a tattoo on top of the old one.  So no, not many, not several, maybe ONE.  ONE.  Ok, then they go on to say they are were all raced and tortured.  No, not even half of them have tattoos or were raced and certainly the preggo mare about to pop wasn’t recently raced and fresh off the track.  As far as the `kill buyer’ goes, that is convicted felon Jacob Thompson currently serving something like 10 years probation for cattle theft among other things, so not exactly a stand up guy or all that familiar with the truth.  Jacob will also sell to anybody and the first person that hands him the cash.  He has restitution payments to make and he doesn’t care where the money comes from.  That’s why he demanded, and got a non-refundable $2000 deposit plus fees from HiCaliber.  Bills to pay and he found a new mark.  In doing all this HiCaliber has agreed to pay 20k for the horses and the rest is to ship them to southern California and keep them for a few months.  That’s what they say.  They never like to show actual invoices or bills so you’re just going to have to take their word for it that they need a nice round number like 20k to cover the rest of the costs.  This isn’t counting the money they already pulled in from their crying on live feed last night which was upwards of 10k.  I’m certainly not mathlete but 20 +20 + 10 = 50 to me.  Ironically, they were complaining about being in arrears to their hay supplier for 40k a few months ago and were cut off.   Things that make you go hmmm.

I’m sure some of you are sitting there thinking, `what does it matter as long as the horses are safe’?.  How safe are they?  HiCaliber wants you to believe that they are all emaciated and dying, which isn’t exactly true.  A few are in pretty rough shape, but some are in really nice shape.  But say they are all in really terrible shape.  How wise is it to cram 20 horses onto one truck and ship them in the heat straight through to Arizona, which is their designated pick up spot.  For anybody keeping track, that’s over 1000 miles they will be onboard without food or water and, allegedly one is so pregnant she’s going to pop.  Why would you want to do that to these poor souls when there are several extremely legitimate rescues closer to those horses that could and would take them if you weren’t just a huge attention whore that needed to grab a big headline like you attempted to do with the last `big save’ that wasn’t really a save at all.  More on that anon.  Much, much more.  Why would you even want to import horses off a feed lot all the way from Louisiana when your friendly neighborhood kill buyer and close friend,  Misner, has 60 horses standing on his lot that he’d happily sell you for half of that?  Why aren’t those horses right in your back yard good enough to save?  Geeze, how many local horse would 40k save?  The mind boggles.  Oh and while I’m on the subject of feedlots, the Louisiana lot these horses are coming from is said to have been ground zero for the EVH-1 outbreak over there this year.  Go watch any of the Thompson videos and you can also hear horses hacking away in the background.  Way to bring more disease into HiCaliber gals!   I’m sure your neighbors love you.  The picture below is Misner’s lot.  I guess they aren’t as media friendly as the big cross country save.  Sad times.

In closing, I’d like to say welcome back to anybody that is still following along or checks in here.  The analytics suggest I have some pretty dedicated creepers even after all this time and that Buckaroo post is still pissing people off years after the fact.  I feel like I just skimmed the surface on this stuff.  Things are still developing and there are major back stories to be told.  I hope to get to that all in good time until I get distracted again, but keep coming back.   We have some horses to save!

 

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