Complaint Review: Sandy Hill Stables - LaPorte City Iowa

I began this unpleasant journey by bringing my healthy, two year old quarter horse to Sandy Hill Stales. They were the only barn in the area with immediate openings available. We arrived after dark and put my horse in a stall overnight. I offered to have Tom look at my coggins and shot records, but he wasn't interested. We then immediately signed a hand written contract exempting the farm from sickness liabilities, which they didn't sign themselves, but continued to tell us that THEY'VE been taken advantage of before. I was then told my horse would be turned out in the morning, which was not the case. I got there the next day at 3pm and my horse was still in a stall. Odd, I thought, but I then decided to hand walk him to get him used to his new surroundings.

We started with the "indoor" arena, which is too small to even lunge a horse in, much less ride. Then worked our way to the outdoor arena, which was acceptable and adjacent to the main turnout pen. Through the gate I could see that the horses in the pen were all standing in about 8 inches of mud. It was very clear that there were just too many (about 10) in a pasture about half the size of a football field. Anyways, I then walked my horse around the inside of the paddock where the herd was. My boots kept getting stuck in the thick mud, I pulled up numerous clumps of dangerous hay netting, and even found the scapula and cannon/splint bone of an old horse put down in the field and left to rot. Yuck. The horses themsevles weren't in the best condition but I had no other option at that point but to accept this as his new home until an opening at another barn popped up.

The next day I wen't out to visit and took a closer look at some of the horses. One of them, a chestnut with a blaze, had streams of snot running down her nose, I simply panicked. All of the horses in there share one round bale of hay and a contaminated water trough. I immeidately began looking for other barns, but it was too little too late for my boy. A week of searching for new places brought on new information about Sandy Hill though, I started hearing rumors about the barn having Strangles, sharing livestock trailers with pigs without cleanings, selling tranquilized horses without coggins papers, and improperly euthanizing animals on the property. Needless to say, we managed to escape after two weeks of exposure, and then the symptoms began. The rumors were true.

His new barn had him quaranteened to a clean stall, and after a few days, I called the Hudson vet to come check him out, he was coughing, lethargic, snotty, had a low grade temp, and rock hard retropharyngeal lymphnodes. He has Strangles :( So after I paid the $120.00 vet bill, we quaranteened him even further away from civilization and bleached everything he touched. After he feels better we have to take him to the university vet clinic in Ames,IA and have a $500.00 dollar scoping procedure done in order to make sure he is not a carrier of the sickness like some horses can be. Without a negative culture, my future barrel horse will be forever ruined and isolated. 

Please don't bring your horses here. If you buy one from these guys, have it tested so you don't spread sickness to another unsuspecting herd. The Sheriff's department and Animal Control have been notified.

I'm dissapointed in you Tom, a herd of horses is not a used car lot.