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Stud owner denies horses were emaciated
An owner of the Emerald Lodge horse stud has denied repeated defence allegations that thoroughbreds sent to a pet food factory were underfed and emaciated.
Deborah Thistoll said the horses were light but not emaciated. She said it was not unusual to see ribs on thoroughbreds.
She made her comments as defence counsel Paul Norcross took her through a large book of photographs of horses he said were from the Emerald Lodge stud near Christchurch, in a trial where a former worker at the stud is charged with stealing five horses.
Horse trainer Nicola Anne Subritzky, 41, denies three theft charges and is alleging she rescued the five horses from neglect, in the trial at the Christchurch District Court trial.
The trial is expected to take three days before Judge Jane Farish who has already warned spectators about their behaviour in a courtroom where emotions are running high.
She warned people in the public gallery that because witnesses had been excluded from the room before they gave evidence, it would be inappropriate to discuss evidence with people during the breaks.
She also said it was inappropriate for them to discuss the case on social networking sites such as Facebook, and they must keep their comments to themselves in the court room. ?If you can?t refrain from commenting, I?ll ask you to leave the court.?
Most of the morning hearing was caught up with legal argument in closed court, but the trial began about midday. It is before a judge-alone.
Mrs Thistoll said Subritzky had been employed at the stud for about 18 months but had left when she became intoxicated, belligerent, and threatening at a gathering.
She acknowledged the stud got into financial difficulties. It was owed a lot of money, at a time when the recession hit the industry, and in 2008 the decision was made to downsize and liquidate the company, Burnham Blood Stock New Zealand Ltd.
She said they tried to sell as many horses as possible, but there were just no buyers. Some of the thoroughbred racehorses were given away as polo ponies, but others had to be culled ?to make room and get through the winter?.
Some of the stud?s horses had been kept at another property called Tui Creek, near the Rakaia Gorge. She was eventually told that five horses which had been at Tui Creek had been taken away last July. She had not seen them since.
Cross-examined by Mr Norcross, she denied that Subritzky had been concerned for the welfare of the horses.
At times, there had been up to 160 horses at the stud, and Mrs Thistoll said there had always been feed for them.
Mr Norcross asked: ?Wasn?t it so that with the business going into decline and unable to meet bills as they came due, you struggled to keep feed supplies up for the horses??
Mrs Thistoll replied: ?The horses never went without. They were always well fed. I went without but the horses didn?t.?
She said she and her husband had since been declared bankrupt on the application of a creditor, made in June 2008.
She said that eventually the decision was made to cull 23 horses which were sent to a nearby pet food factory to be put down.
She was then shown a book of defence photographs including pictures taken of horses at the pet food factory. She repeatedly described the horses as ?thin but not emaciated?, or ?just light?.
?I can see a lot of ribs and backbone on some of these photographs,? said Mr Norcross.
Mrs Thistoll replied that some horses had been ill or difficult to feed. ?Seeing ribs in a thoroughbred is not unusual.?
Mr Norcross: ?Are you not prepared to accept the reality which is that these horses arrived at the pet food factory because you were having trouble financially and were unable to get feed for them??
Mrs Thistoll: ?The reason they were sent away is because they were at the end of their breeding careers.? They were hard to get condition on.
Mr Norcross pointed out a photograph of a horse he said appeared emaciated. ?It?s been starved,? he said.
?Nothing was starved at our place,? Mrs Thistoll replied.
She said Emerald Lodge had tried to get back the horses that had been at Tui Creek, but had been prevented from taking them by the farm manager, John White. They had spoken to the Rolleston police about that, but they said it was a civil matter.
She denied ever receiving a large invoice from Mr White for the cost of grazing the horses.
Afternoon update:?The other owner of Emerald Lodge stud, Paul Thistoll, said they were going to shift the horse breeding operation to Tui Creek farm.
They sent about 40 horses there in 2008, to spend the winter. He supplied baleage, and the farm had plenty of grass.
After winter some of the horses came down to foal at Emerald Lodge and the rest remained there.
He had full access to them and was there once a week and in the last few months once a month to check them.
He said he was later denied access to Tui Creek to remove his horses, so he rang his clients and told them to talk to John White, to get their horses back.
He said he was later told that some of the horses had been removed from Tui Farm.
He contacted Rolleston police station and said they had been removed without permission and said who he thought might have removed them ? Subritzky.
The constable contacted Subritzky but she refused to return the horses. She had no property rights over the horses.
He was later contacted by the police and arranged to pick up the horses which the police had located. But when he went to retrieve the horses they had gone. He got just one back but the other five had gone and he had still not got them back.
Cross-examined by Mr Norcross, he was shown photographs of horses at the pet food factory. ?Some of them don?t look very good do they,? said Mr Thistoll.
??These horses didn?t look this bad when they left my place,? he said.
They got between $120 and $150 per horse.
He said it was untrue that some horses were put down without their owners knowing. He denied the owners had been told the horses had paddock accidents.
The hearing is continuing.
