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Regional,
Monthly All-Breed Horse Magazine |
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Copyright 2010 Rocky Mountain Rider. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reproduction of any editorial material, artwork and photos is strictly forbidden without express written permission of the publisher. For information about reprint rights, please contact the editor; editor@rockymountainrider.com.
By Dorinda Troutman, RMR Staff Writer
To read the short version of this article, please click here.
After a 5-day court battle, the two-man, four-woman jury in Montana
Judicial District Court returned a verdict in just three hours. The
five-day appeal trial was held February 22-26, 2010, in
Curtis Heydon, 39, was
convicted of ten out of eleven counts of animal abuse. His father, Craig Heydon, 72, was convicted of nine out of ten counts of animal
abuse. Two charges related to the
youngest horse were decided as not-guilty.
The verdict was almost the same as the January 30, 2009, verdict of
guilty on all 21 counts in
The Heydons, who live in
Prosecutor John Bell, of
the
Defense attorney Mat
Stevenson based much of his defense on attempting to prove
pre-existing health conditions of the horses and the fact that one of the
horses was in better condition that the other three. He explained that by
the time the Heydons recognized the horses’ health problems, they were
in the Wilderness area, without cell phone reception or a vehicle.
Stevenson said that the state could not prove the Heydons did not
do everything within reason to care for the horses.
Stevenson called five witnesses, including two back country
outfitters that testified as expert witnesses, the Heydons, and the
veterinarian who treated Able, the abandoned horse, on the day he was
rescued. Prosecution
Witnesses
When Dawn Merrill began
her testimony, she related how she had learned to go into the back country
by being mentored by more experienced people. She took saddle-fitting and
hoof trimming classes, and volunteered to pack other people’s equipment
into the Wilderness for the experience.
Merrill told about riding up Big Creek Trail late Friday morning,
August 1, 2008, with her friend Q Dehart, and encountering Curtis Heydon
riding out on a thin horse with missing shoes and bags slung over the
pommel.
Heydon told them his pack horse had gone down for no apparent
reason up the trail and told them that he had hit it and kicked it to try
to get it up, finally leaving it lying there.
When Merrill and Dehart found the downed horse in the middle of the
trail six miles up, they thought he was dead, until he raised his head and
nickered.
They found a note attached to his saddle saying, “Horse down for
no apparent reason. Will be back in 24 hours.” There was no date, name
or phone number.
Merrill and Dehart spent hours unsuccessfully trying to get the
scraped and sore, terribly thin horse to stand, bringing him quarts of
water, taking off his saddle and untying him from the log next to his
head. They wet his saddle blanket and placed it on him to give relief from
biting flies and hot sun.
“I didn’t want the horse to suffer so. I thought a mountain
lion or other animal might get him that night. I thought it would be
better to shoot him than leave him there, said Merrill, who didn’t have
a pistol.”
Back at the trailhead the women called the sheriff’s department
and the
Dehart’s husband, Jay, walked in six miles that night in the next
attempt to rescue the horse, but failed to find him in the dark.
By Saturday evening phone calls confirmed that the horse had not
been brought out and Merrill prepared to go back in Sunday morning with
her neighbor Mike Svaboda. She was packing
She said that Svaboda also brought his pistol.
“We found the horse standing by the trail near the creek. We gave
him the food, and the first of three double doses of
“Mike’s horse Ruby was hurt and he was walking. They were both
limping. He was straining to push the bay from behind with his shoulder in
the horse’s rump and I was pulling him from my horse, Pete. Every time
he tried to lie down we urged him on. I began to get worried about Mike;
he was working so hard.
“It took twelve hours and two more double doses of
“When we finally loaded him in my trailer, we gave him a leaf of
good hay and water. He ate it all on the way to the vet’s.”
Mike Svaboda told of his ten to fifteen years’ experience riding
in the back country; two years of Ag college, running a farm, and 18 years
as a general manager at Cenex, an agricultural business. He said that he
owned four horses, including one that was 24 years old.
He said that, on the trail that day, “My horse, Ruby, took a
stick into the hairline area (coronet band) not too far up the trail and
so I got off and led her after that.”
After they had found, doctored and fed the bay horse, and gotten
him slowly moving, “about two and a half hours – about two miles down
the trail – five miles from the trailhead – he was wantin’ to go
down again, and after an argument, I sent Dawn down the trail.”
Svaboda thought he might need to shoot the horse and didn’t want
Merrill to be there. Merrill took off two cushiony over boots from her
horse and they were put on the bay’s bare front feet.
“I led Ruby and she dragged the bay about 40 feet, until he
decided that he could walk again, and we very slowly got down to the
trailhead. He tried to lie down again just before we got him in the
trailer, but we made it.
“I’d never seen an animal in that kind of condition. He was
just raw thin. He was as close as you could get to being dead without
being dead,” Svaboda testified.
Cheryl Flanagan runs a
large horse rescue organization in
Sean Schaitel worked on
a trail crew for the
Schaitel said that the horses were hobbled and feeding on alpine
fescue, which is poor horse feed.
Wilderness Ranger Matthew
Ward sent an email to his superior after seeing the Heydons and their
horses June 17 and 18, up Big Creek Trail: “One of their horses was in
poor shape, rope burns, saddle sores, missing back shoe.”
He testified that there was no ointment on the horses’ sores and
that flies were buzzing around the wounds.
Wilderness Ranger Bill
Goslin often rides a horse and packs a mule when he does trial
maintenance, public education and clean up. He also reports trips by
email.
He wrote that he had seen the Heydons June 25 to June 27 with
“four horses in poor shape, lathered up, no shoes and the packs were
long bags hung by strings to saddles with dowels drilled into them.”
Goslin explained that the Heydons packing method would cause the
packs to swing, causing saddle sores. He said that he had demonstrated to
the Heydons with his own mule how to pack using a rope and basket hitch.
He also told the Heydons they would have limited
Goslin saw the horses again on July 7 and wrote that Diamond’s
sore at that point was “about three inches wide and in a healing
process.” He emailed the
Goslin thought the horses were not abused but were neglected. He
said that he was taken by surprise at the condition of Able when he “saw
his photo (collapsed on the trail) in the Rocky
Mountain Rider Magazine about a
Ravalli County Deputy
Sheriff Travis McEldery found the Heydons and their horses the evening
of August 4 at a Stevensville mini-storage facility. He had just been
assigned to the case after his office had gotten reports of the horse
abandoned on the trail and he knew that the horse had been rescued. He had
spoken to the veterinarian caring for the horse, who told him the horse
was “very, very, very thin.” He called in Sheriff’s
Deputy John Moles, considered a horse expert in the department.
Everyone in the courtroom listened intently to an often-emotional
audio tape made by McEldery of himself,
Craig Heydon: “They (the horses) did just fine, perfectly, the
first
McEldery: “Several, many people, every person who went up Big
Creek Trail and saw the horse called us.”
Craig Heydon: “The horses were in four feet of grass (at Elk
Summit).”
Moles: “How old are these horses?”
Craig Heydon: “I don’t know. I called that clinic. When can I
get that horse? I’m not going to pay $50 a day for care of that horse.
That horse was stubborn. Basically he gets something in his head he wants
to do. That was the fifth time he went down. He was stubborn like a
mule.”
Curtis Heydon: “It was resisting me. I did not purposefully drive
that horse into the ground.”
McEldery: “How did that saddle sore (on Diamond) get so bad?
Craig Heydon: “I’d like to know that. We had to distribute more
weight onto Bay Baby after Morgan got sore.”
Moles: “It really pisses me off what you guys have done to these
horses. Is this normal to you? And did you not see this coming? You
can’t see this condition?”
Craig Heydon: “What condition? He hasn’t changed since I bought
him.”
Moles: “These horses are going to be taken. Your knowledge to
care for them is lacking. This doesn’t look good.”
Craig Heydon: “There’s nothing wrong with these horses.”
Deputy John Moles grew up with horses, outfitted in the back
country for two years, worked on a big ranch in the Big Hole Valley of
Montana for seven years, and owns horses that he rides and packs in the
back country.
He testified that when he saw the three horses that night in
Stevensville, “None of the horses wanted to take a step. The palomino
was what I call starved down. They had open sores and pretty good-sized
cuts, with feet too sore to walk. I’ve seen some horses in pretty tough
shape but I’ve not seen any as bad as these.
“These horses should have been brought out (of the back country)
and not used at all. They needed medical attention.”
Under cross-examination, Moles was asked what he would do if he had
a horse with a problem at the Kooskooskia Meadows trailhead (near Elk
Summit). Moles replied “The area is popular. I would hitch a ride out
with the horse. I would have walked out 30 miles, if needed.”
John Lewing had met the
Heydons on August 3 while hiking with his wife near the Colt Creek
trailhead. He told the jury that he saw the palomino “with his hips
sucked in, ribs and bones sticking out” and recommended the Heydons take
the horse to his friend Dr. Cross for treatment. He said that the Heydons
had taken the saddles off two of the horses, but had left a saddle and
pack on the palomino.
Dr. Andy Cross DVM
treated the palomino’s (Diamond) saddle sores on August 4 when the
Heydons brought the horse to him.
Cross wrote in his notes that the horse had: “Very poor body
condition, literally skin and bones, very painful pressure sores at many
bony prominences. Very good teeth, no reason to not be able to eat.”
Cross said that he had never treated a saddle sore as large as the
one on Diamond and that the horse was so happy to have green grass to eat
at the clinic that he wasn’t paying attention to Cross treating the
wound. When he asked, the Heydons told him they had not saddled the horse
in two to four weeks.
Dr. Shawn Gleason
treated the horses after they were in the custody of the Bitter Root
Humane Association. He scored them using the Henneke body scoring method
of one to nine; with the score of one being as thin as a horse could get
and still be alive; five being just right; and nine being obese. Able was
given the score of one plus; Diamond a score of one to two; Casino a two;
and Magic a four.
Dr. Gleason also treated the horses’ sores, abrasions and
abscessed feet, and prescribed feed to bring them back to health. He
called in an equine ophthalmologist specialist to treat ulcerated eyes in
two of the horses.
Under cross-examination, Stevenson asked about underlying health
problems and “refeeding syndrome.” Dr. Gleason replied that the horses
“did fine recovering with simple rest, food and water.”
Dr. Robert Brophy DVM
testified as an expert witness. He is a long-time large and small animal
veterinarian in
“I’d seen injuries such as this and horses that were
malnourished, but I’d
When questioned if the horses had underlying health problems,
Brophy said, “If you hear hoofbeats, you don’t look for zebras. Food,
water and rest are the basic medication.”
Brophy also interpreted lab reports from blood tests that Dr. Dick
Richardson had taken immediately after Able was rescued. “The animal was
literally using its own muscle for food.” Defense
Witnesses
Back country outfitter Rick Hussey explained how he cared for and
fed horses in the back country: Horses being actively used are kept in
corrals and fed about 30 pounds of hay cube with 20% grain per day. Horses
not being worked are grazed in grassy meadows 24 hours a day.
When asked about problems, Hussey listed what he took in as first
aid and what he did for sores. He said that he did not allow his customers
to ride downhill as that would cause saddle sores on the withers, as would
ill-fitting saddles or thin saddle pads.
Hussey described a good horse for his business as “a little
overweight, has a one to two sized shoe, a short back, good bone, and is
calm and slow.”
Hussey looked at photos of the horses taken three weeks after they
were confiscated and said that the abrasions he saw were normal for a
horse packing in the back country.
Judge Jeffrey Langton asked Hussey what the proper action would be
in the back country if a shoe could not be replaced on a horse. Hussey
answered, “Not to use that horse for riding or packing. Lead it out. If
my horses were sore-footed to start with, I would never attempt the
trip.”
John Bell asked Hussey that if the stock was as in poor condition
as the US Forest Rangers had emailed, and still taken into the Wilderness,
was that more than inexperience?
Hussey answered, “Yes, that was inexperience and stupidity.
They’re just stupid. They’re dummer’n hell.”
Curtis Heydon told about how he and his father had planned the
trip, including the division of labor, with his father in charge of the
horses and himself to be the “chief cook and bottle washer.”
Curtis said that he always rode the younger bay that he called
Pickles. His father always rode the older palomino called Morgan. He told
of how camping on the east side of the
After about a
At the trailhead, Curtis stayed with the horses in camp with a
couple of bales of hay and some senior feed purchased for the palomino.
Craig drove the rig back over to
Curtis explained that “There were acceptable and normal saddle
sorse on two to three horses, and Morgan had a nice, thick scab on top of
his.
“We noticed he was
losing weight and so we increased his feed. We never ran out of feed the
whole time we were in the back country.”
Curtis estimated they had ridden the horses a total of no more than
38 miles by that time.
After three days at the trailhead, they noticed the sore on Morgan
had opened up into a much larger wound with maggots in it, and their first
aid efforts did not work. They decided to go the four
to five miles up to Elk Summit, where another packer told them he had some
deep wound ointment they could use. Craig cut out Morgan’s saddle pad to
accommodate his sore, and they put on the saddle with their sleeping pads
and bags. Curtis said that they
The horses were
Heydon paused and asked to explain why he was calling the geldings
“she.”
“It’s a term of endearment. I know they are geldings.”
On July 30, the Heydons moved camp again to
After a day of rest, they decided that Curtis would leave at
daybreak on Pickles, leading Bay Baby, and ride east over
Curtis said that when he got over the pass and to the lake, he went
down a steep incline called the “staircase,” where “she (Bay Baby)
began to resist the lead, fight me.” Less than a half mile later, “she
fell on the trail and couldn’t get up.”
Curtis implored, “I’ve never hit anything in my life. I am
dismayed by Miss Merrill’s and Q’s words saying I would. She (Bay
Baby) was kicking the log, tearing it up. She had gone down before and we
had used a lariat and another horse with Father to get her up. Pickles
couldn’t help; she wasn’t big enough. I thought to leave the saddle on
for warmth that night. I left a note saying I would be back within 24
hours to get her. I didn’t figure that if I wasn’t back in time, it
was a legal binding agreement and somebody could just take it (the
horse).”
Curtis said that after he left the horse and encountered Merrill
and Dehart on the trail, he got to the trailhead, found his cell phone was
dead, tied Pickles to a tree and walked into Victor, about six miles, to
use a pay phone to arrange getting picked up with his truck and trailer.
Back at the trailhead with his trailer to get Pickles, Curtis met
Merrill and Dehart again, and asked if they had found his horse. He loaded
Pickles, took him to the Stevensville corral at the mini-storage, and was
found by Deputy Shad Pease, who had already seen photos of the horse on
the trail sent by Dawn Merrill. Curtis called Ranger Bill Goslin and was
told that he had to do his best to get the horse out as soon as possible,
or if the horse had expired, to remove the body so that predators
wouldn’t become a problem for people on the trail.
The next day, August 2, Curtis’ credit card was declined and he
was
Curtis was able to drive within four miles of his father’s camp.
He rode Pickles in, packed up and they both “walked the four horses to
the trailhead.” The easy boots they put on Preacher were lost along the
way. They gave
They decided that “Father was going to take Morgan to Dr. Cross
and I was going to ride Pickles up to get Bay Baby the next morning,”
but when they called Goslin, he told them the horse was out and at
“There was a misunderstanding with Dr. Cross,” explained
Hayden. “We said we had not ridden
the horse in 30 days. Cross came to the conclusion that we had
Curtis walked in for the saddle on August 6. “I always intended
to get that horse. I enjoyed the horses greatly,” he stated.
John Bell asked Curtis a series of questions, all answered in the
negative: “If when you went to Stevensville on July 10, did you ever
think of taking any of those horses to a vet before going in to the
Wilderness? Did you think of resting and feeding them for a couple of
weeks? Did you contact a farrier? You said that Able went down 13 to 15
times on the trip. Did you think that was bad?”
And finally,
Curtis said “I do.”
Curtis answered “July 30.”
Curtis answered, “Yes.”
Curtis said that he had
Craig Heydon told about how he was raised on a farm with two draft
horses and a saddle horse. While in college he exercised horses for his
employer who rode horses in parades.
He decided to take horses on this trip, due to his legs and knees
not being able to take so much walking as when he and his son hiked and
camped when he was younger. He decided after checking the internet for
horses to rent for the summer, or outfitters to guide them, that it was
too expensive.
“Rental horses would have cost me $100 a day. Outfitters were
much more. We didn’t want to spend a fortune to go into the Wilderness.
We got all four horses for $3,500. I spoke to my brother in
Heydon narrated in a rambling account that they had trouble right
away due to the equipment such as cots that they wanted to take with them.
“The horse would hit the thing on the trail. When we came out the
first time, we left most of that. I had relied on a guy in
Heydon found out right away when they arrived in the Bitterroot
Valley that when Preacher was packed first, he would lie down, and the
older bay didn’t make it a half mile down the trail before he fell down.
“That horse went down on us five times. I couldn’t determine
whether it was clumsy or something else. Every time it would go down, it
would lay there.”
Heydon explained that they took 200 pounds of supplemental feed
with them up to
Heydon said that by Elk
Heydon ended his testimony by stating that “When we left
Judge Langton then asked Heydon about his preparation for the trip
and what books he had read. Heydon showed the “Horse Owner’s
Veterinary Handbook, 2008 edition.” The judge asked about packing books
and supplemental feed. Heydon told him that they had purchased about 350
pounds of feed for the entire trip from
Dr. Dick Richardson was on-call the Sunday afternoon Able was
rescued and brought to his clinic. He testified that he was surprised that
the horse was alert and walked into his stall, since he had been told by
Merrill that the horse was in much worse condition.
He showed x-rays of Able’s feet and explained that the horse was
likely purchased with an unknown history of hoof problems, including
ringbone in one foot. “These foot problems would likely cause
stumbling.”
John Bell asked
Did
In rebuttal, Dr. Gleason refuted Closing
Statements
John Bell asked the jury to do one thing: “Look at the 30 photos
of the horses. They are every bit as revealing as the testimony, but they
are not contradicting. Also, look at Dr. Gleason’s treatment of the
horses, Dr. Cross’s medical report, even Dr. Richardson’s report, and
the Forest Service emails.”
“Was there a cost factor here?
Mat Stevenson showed photos again of the horses at Elk Summit
Stevenson instructed the jury, “You must find that moment in time
when they grossly deviated from standard care.”
John Bell then quickly summed up his case, “In spite of smoke
screens and excuses, remember, the vets said they were gross deviations,
including their witness,
“If you saw a family with four normal children moving in down the
street, and then didn’t see those children for 40 days; and when they
came out of their house they were emaciated and covered in bruises and
sores, what would you think?” Verdict
& Sentencing
The jury debated just three hours before coming to a decision.
Judge Jeffrey Langton pronounced sentencing on March 3, 2010.
What happens now to the horses?
Names
and descriptions of the horses Three
of the four horses were renamed by the Humane Society after they were
confiscated. Dawn Merrill and Mike Svaboda named Able, in honor of his
trying to get down the trail. The Heydons had renamed most of the horses
after they purchased them: 1)
Able,
a 13-year-old bay gelding, called Bay
Baby by the Heydons 2)
Diamond,
a 20-plus-year-old palomino gelding, called Morgan
by the Heydons 3)
Magic,
an 8-year-old bay gelding, called Pickles
by the Heydons 4) Casino, a sorrel/roan gelding in his late teens, called Preacher by the Heydons
Sidebar:
timeline.
•
May
20, 2008 – Heydons leave •
June
8 – Arrive in •
June
19 – Bill Goslin emails that
“One of their horses is in poor shape: saddle sore, bad rope burn on
legs, missing shoe •
June
24 – Return to valley, put
horses in corral at mini-storage, stayed overnight at motel in •
June
25 – go back in to Big Creek
Trail to Tipi Rock camp (half way to •
Late
June – move up trail to •
July
7 – Bill Goslin and two
others go up to •
July
10 – Heydons drive to •
July
11 - Craig takes empty truck
and trailer to •
July
13 – Colt Creek Camp.
Diamond’s (palomino) saddle sore opens up, filled with maggots •
July
14 – Heydons move to Elk •
July
30 – left Elk Summit, moved
back to Colt Creek Trailhead •
Aug
1 – Curtis rides young bay,
leads older bay out over pass to Big Creek Trail (18-19 miles). Abandons
downed older bay horse on trail. Meets Merrill and Dehart near trailhead.
They later find the horse still lying in the trail. Jay Dehart walks six
miles back that night and can’t find horse. Curtis stays in town that
night and next. •
Aug
2 – Curtis calls Ranger Bill
Goslin to tell him he had left a horse on Big Creek Trail, that he had
taken the saddle off and would go back for it after picking up his father
the next day. •
Aug
3 – Dawn Merrill and Mike
Svaboda go back in for downed horse, bring him out and take him to • Aug 4 – Heydons take palomino to Dr. Cross for treatment. Sheriff’s Deputies confiscate all four horses that night, and arrange for the three horses at the storage unit to go to the Bitter Root animal shelter.
To read the short version of this article, please click here.
Thank
you for reading Rocky Mountain Rider Magazine
There will also be an article about the trial in the April Issue of RMR.
Reader Comments about the Trial. Click Here!
Copyright 2010 Rocky Mountain Rider. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reproduction of any editorial material, artwork and photos is strictly forbidden without express written permission of the publisher. For information about reprint rights, please contact the editor; editor@rockymountainrider.com.
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Mountain Rider Magazine • Montana Owned & Operated |
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