Horse rescue needs help to fix its flooded paddock

PHOTOGRAPHER: Jessica Harding

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A local horse farm needs the community’s support to keep its horses from suffering injuries this winter.

The paddock at the Easy Street horse rescue farm has flooded from all of the wet weather this spring and summer.

“Whatever happened with all the rain this year made springs come up under our road and made our paddock into a lake that won’t drain off,” director Nina Bellinger said.

A local man has volunteered his time to fix the farm’s drainage problem, but Bellinger needs to either raise $5,000 or receive donated equipment and supplies to do the work.

Bellinger would need a mini excavator and dump truck, a roll of filter or road fabric, 50 tons of No. 2 stone, 200 feet of 4-inch corrugated drainage, sand or topsoil and mulch or sawdust to cover the paddock, which is about 105 feet by 200 feet.

Bellinger said she hoped the water would drain away on its own, but after two weeks of vacation away from the farm, she returned to find more water in the area, not less.

In good weather there is lots of land for the horses to go out to pasture, but the horses mostly live in the paddock area in the winter.

Bellinger is hoping to either raise enough money or get donated materials as soon as possible so the work can be completed before the paddock turns into ice.

“This is 10 on a scale of 10,” Bellinger said. “It is urgent that we have good ground for them. An ice skating pond will lead to broken legs. Horses need good footing.”

The Easy Street rescue farm is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization and takes in horses from around the Northeast. They are becoming more well known in the area through the Internet, especially through Facebook.

The farm cares for the horses until they can be adopted. Only one horse lives permanently at the farm, a retired thoroughbred racehorse.

“She cares for the younger horses that come in,” she said.

Currently the rescue farm has nine horses, and they aren’t taking any more until the problem is fixed. Bellinger said she has turned away about 20 requests so far; the farm can usually take about 15 horses for the winter.

Horses stay at the farm for as long as they need to. Some stay a short time, and some have stayed for up to two years.

A few factors have contributed to the overwhelming need for her horse rescue facility, Bellinger said, including the current economy in which people don’t have enough money to care for their horses anymore, as well as years of too much breeding.

To learn more about the farm and ways to help, visit their Web site at www.easystreetrescue.org. Monetary donations can be sent to Easy Street Rescue, 109 Langley Road, Amsterdam, NY 12010. Donations can also be made via PayPal on the organization’s Web site.