A home for horses

Volunteers walk back and forth through rescue row, busily taking care of the unwanted, the neglected and the starved.

Socrates stands still, fatter than when he came in, but unable to move without pain. He has gained more than 400 pounds in the seven months since he was found abandoned, tied to a tree in a park with a broken leg and riding sores.

His front left leg bends the wrong way, and soon he will have to be euthanized, but until then, he is getting the love and attention someone else was unwilling or unable to give him.

“It’s a really painful reality of the life and death we deal with here,” said Susan Peirce, one of the founders of the Red Bucket Equine Rescue, which took in Socrates.

Socrates is just one of the horses that have been brought back to life by Red Bucket. The organization takes in horses from around Southern California and rehabilitates them to be adopted out of the Huntington Central Park Equestrian Center.

Red Bucket has taken in more than 70 horses and found “forever homes” for 20. The rescue is at capacity, with about 50 horses in its care, but there are more that need help.

Peirce gets e-mails and phone calls regularly from people begging, sometimes crying for her take their horses.

The phone calls break her heart, but they can’t afford to take in any more animals, she said.

“I cry a lot,” she said.

Peirce started the rescue with her husband, David Peirce, and Mary Behrens, the owner of the Huntington Central Park Equestrian Center, in January 2009.

Peirce began rescuing horses as a girl in Kentucky and started again a couple of years ago when she found Harlow in the Inland Empire.

The thoroughbred was a “bag of bones” starving to death in the back of a corral when the Peirces found her. Harlow was terrified of people, but Susan Peirce said she couldn’t turn her back on her.

“My whole life, I would always bring horses home,” she said. “I guess that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.”

The Peirces discovered nine other starving horses, but taking care of that many was too much for the family that gave up vacations and Starbucks to take care of the one they had.

Susan Peirce sent out a plea for help, and Behrens was the only one who answered.

Since then, the horses have found them. One time, the three got a call from the Inland Empire about 50 starving horses, and they were able to rescue 42 of them.

Sometimes they have to buy the horses, but mostly the animals come from people who don’t want to or can’t take care of them anymore or are selling them for auction, Susan Peirce said.

Bringing awareness to the over-breeding that is going on is essential, Behrens said in an e-mail.

“This is what has been ignored in our society — the starvation, abandonment and neglect,” she said.

It costs roughly $1,000 a month to care of a horse with board, food and medicine, and like many, the organization has suffered from the economy. Red Bucket operates on donations, the founders’ money and volunteers who give their services.

The organization is in the process of becoming a nonprofit, but is getting desperate, Susan Peirce said.

Once she and her partners get their 501(c)3 status, they will be able to go after grants and large donations, but until then, it’s a “critical period,” she said.

“If we bring in more money, we can bring in more horses,” and “there are a lot of horses that are in trouble,” she said.

How To Help

Donate at www.redbucketrescue.org.