Epona Horse Rescue, missing most of the animals that called it home, was the quietest it’s been in more than half a year after an emotional procession.
Volunteers loaded thirty-seven of the horses seized by Gage County, Nebraska, officials in August onto trailers to haul to auction.
More than a hundred people packed into the Palmyra Livestock Market stamping their feet, clapping their hands, and waging bidding wars.
Epona founder Lin Guyton was hoping to bring home all of the horses, but $62,000 later, she came out with 13 and few more that others bought possibly on the way.
“We will get the rest adopted out into homes,” Guyton said. “Each and every single one of them deserves an individual home.”
Guyton said the auction was disappointing and frustrating.
A few weeks ago, Epona volunteer Tanya Martin-Dick discussed her love for one of the horses, Phoenix, who came to the non-profit near death.
“I just begged him to hang on,” Martin-Dick said. “And I said, I’ll come feed you. I’ll come love you. Please don’t die.”
She won her bid for him.
“He’s gonna have a beautiful life with me,” Martin-Dick said.
The sale brought in $184,097.25, most of which will go back to the court. And after all outstanding fees are paid, the rest will go to Jennafer Glaesemann, who Gage County officials seized the horses from.
It’s a case that zigged and zagged across a long seven months, and some are just glad it’s come to some closure.
“I hope they have homes that will take care of them, realizing where they came for them,” Gage County Sheriff Millard Gustafson said. “And making a better life for them.”
Gustafson said he isn’t sure yet how much of the money will end up going back to Glaesemann.
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