A heart's desire to help rescue horses
Millstone resident starts nonprofit
BY JANE MEGGIT Staff Writer
The American saddlebred gelding now residing in Millstone is just one of the healthy and sound horses that would have been bound for a Canadian or Mexican slaughterhouse had a caring individual not intervened.

ERIC SUCAR staff Lisa Post cares for Anderson, one of the horses that her newly formed nonprofit, Helping Hearts Equine Rescue, helped save, at Chestnut Ridge Equestrian Center in Millstone on Feb. 13.

Instead of being shipped to a meat buyer, the 14-year-old horse was rescued from the New Holland Auction in New Holland, Pa., by township resident Lisa Post. She calls him Anderson and plans to train him as a dressage horse before trying to get him permanently adopted.

Post, who owns Chestnut Ridge Equestrian Center, is a dressage instructor with many well-bred horses in her barn and a special place in her heart for rescues. Post's very first horse, Gabriel, was a rescue. Her theninstructor Bernardo Vergara had answered an ad and discovered the emaciated gelding living in a pen with pigs.

A longtime advocate for horse welfare, Post has now formed the Helping Hearts Equine Rescue to find new homes for animals that may otherwise end up at the slaughterhouse. The board of directors includes her husband, Chris, Mary Villano of Millstone, and Denise Dillon-Febles of Tinton Falls.

Top: Lisa Post takes Anderson out of his stall at the Chestnut Ridge Equestrian Center in Millstone on Feb. 13. Above: Post takes Anderson out for a stroll. Left: Lucy, a feline Post rescued from a shelter, relaxes in one of the stables.

According to the Helping Hearts Equine Rescue mission statement, the nonprofit organization is dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating and placing equines in need as well as assisting equines in situations of neglect, abuse or threat of slaughter in Monmouth, Middlesex and Ocean counties and other areas. The group also educates the public about the standards of care required to humanely maintain an equine as a riding partner and/or companion animal.

Horses are not the only animals Post helps. She often shares her facility with rabbits and cats that have been pulled from shelters and need new homes. Some of the rescues have become permanent residents, such as her Vietnamese potbellied pig named Petunia, who came from a northern New Jersey shelter, Dominic, a mini-mule, and Oliver Twist, an older pony she rescued in October from a local situation of starvation and neglect.

PHOTOS BY ERIC SUCAR staff

Veterinarian Dr. Eli Perris said he had never seen a living equine as emaciated as Oliver had been. Although Oliver faced many setbacks, he pulled through and gained at least 100 pounds during his time with Post.

Perhaps Post is best known for having rescued Butch and Buddy, the two Belgian draft horses that the Monmouth County Park System retired in 2005 from working at Longstreet Farm in Holmdel. Park officials had said they were going to allow a dealer to place the horses in a new home with kids, which the local horse community took as a euphemism for placing them up for auction and sending them to slaughter.

After Post and other locals launched a campaign against the park system's retirement plan for the horses, park officials released the animals to Post, who found them a new home.

In her experience, Post said she has discovered many people who want to help rescue horses but can't because they don't have adequate property and/or have to board their own horses.

"Horse rescue is tough," she said. "It's expensive. You need space and [rescued horses] are not so easy to adopt out and find homes for."

By creating an official equine rescue, Post wants to be able to tap into the resources local horse enthusiasts do have.

"With support, we can save and rehab more horses than we can do alone," she said. "The goals [are] to provide safe haven, get them healthy and as whole as possible, get them a job via evaluation and training to create worth in them again."

While Chestnut Ridge Equestrian Center specializes in Friesians for dressage, every breed has something to offer, according to Post.

"To see them thrown away when they still have something to offer is terrible, or [what's] worse [is] finding these aged horses/ponies who are thrown away or neglected after giving their lives teaching people and children and keeping them safe," Post said.

She said often animals show more loyalty than humans. When horses wind up in a bad situation, often an owner's laziness or financial situation is to blame, she said.

"Very few [horses] are really rank or dangerous," she said.

Post said she has loved horses for as long as she can remember.

"I got into horses for the horses, not for ribbons, prestige or anything like that," she said. "I want to teach people to enjoy their horses. If they want to show, that's fine, but if not, we work on the journey so that the horse is enjoying it as well as the owner."

Christy Sheidy, founder of the Pennsylvania based Another Chance for Horses rescue, has worked with Post for quite some time.

"I am thrilled she is doing this, although she is basically just making it official [by becoming a nonprofit], as she has been doing this for a while," Sheidy said.

Sheidy said that at one time rescue was considered a dirty word when it was associated with a horse. She said people once assumed rescue horses had something wrong with them.

"In reality, people are starting to realize that there doesn't have to be something wrong with them and that most of the horses that go to slaughter are young, healthy and sound," she said.

Helping Hearts Equine Rescue is currently conducting several fund drives, including a used cell-phone collection and an eBay auction of a saddle pad containing 19 autographs from members of the 2004 Olympic Equestrian Team.

For more information about Helping Hearts Equine Rescue, visit www.chestnutridgedressage. com