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Sunday, October 28, 2007

California’s Wildfires - A Dressage Barn Flees the Inferno
By Kathy Beal for DressageDaily.com

Caring For the Horses - Good Therapy

Looking back, I think having the need to care for them and stay with them, helped us all to focus and not panic too much. We were still fairly close to fires, but did not feel any other evacuations spots were much safer. Continuous communication within the San Diego and Temecula horse communities helped us all to stay apprised of the situation for the horses.

Pam Moss, of Dressage Warmbloods, assured us that her barn was ready for us at any time. We spoke with Guenter Seidel and found he had evacuated horses to Sandy Burns’ farm in San Marcos. Christina spoke with Nick Wagman, who had left Monday morning for a horse shopping trip to Holland. However, he quickly returned once he reached Minneapolis for a connecting flight and heard the news of the fires.

Most of his horses were evacuated to the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Bettina Loy, at Del Mar Dressage at Showpark, said that facility held 650 horses during the evacuations. At one point, when the winds shifted and Del Mar looked to be in possible danger, those who had evacuated to Dressage at Showpark held a meeting and decided that should it be necessary, they would turn all the horses out into a lagoon near the facility. Fortunately, they didn’t have to do that!