Horses and Hope

[Arletta]

"Horse lovers, even the poor ones, flock to those auctions: we stand at the bar, we watch the yearlings, we mark up the sales book, highlighting the progeny of our favorite racehorses. A few times a year, we indulge in the fantasy and the pageantry.

And while all that’s going on, every Wednesday, photographer Sarah K. Andrew goes to another kind of auction, this one in New Jersey, this one full of horses that their owners know can’t run any more, horses that nobody wants. There’s no convivial bar scene; there are no blue-bloods.

The ironically named Camelot auction takes place every Wednesday in Cranbury, New Jersey, when a variety of breeds of horses are put up for sale, among them Thoroughbreds. In 2010, Andrew joined a group of volunteers committed to making sure that no horse would be sold to “kill buyers” who would then re-sell the horses for slaughter.

In the past, the horses that didn’t sell at the Wednesday night auction were sold to a feed lot, where they were, according to Andrew, fattened up and shipped to slaughter. Since January of 2010, Andrew has shown up on Thursdays to take their pictures, with the full permission and cooperation of Camelot’s owners, to try to find them homes before they can get shipped to a horrible death.
“Instead of harping on the bad, we focus on the good and try to make a positive change.”

Horses and Hope Calendar http://www.hoofprints.com/ska.html

Price - $19.95
(100% of profit goes to charity)

"The most astonishing thing about all these lovely photographs is how much "soul" you see in the horses. Shooting pictures in this environment is incredibly challenging. The lighting is bad. The animals are stressed and unpredictable. The quarters are cramped - it's hard to get far enough away and/or at the best angle. There's undesirable clutter in the background. The list goes on. But, you look at these - it's like Sarah's got angels helping her out. They're truly divinely inspired, and HoofPrints is proud to be a part of this project."


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“Sorrel/roan Grade/App Gelding with an enormously swayed back. Led thru, but is supposed to be a games horse, intermediate+ rider . Find a Saddle for this guy! . . . $100.00″

[OldDog]

Thanks for the story and link. There's never a better time than the present to support a good cause like this!