Horse Community Aids Equine Victims Of Lilac Fire

DEL MAR, CA — Like many across the southland, Sophie Shore watched in horror as Bonsall's San Luis Rey training facility burned, Thursday. Shore just happened to be in Ireland at the time, watching on social media.

Feeling helpless, setting up a GoFundMe page was about the only thing this lifetime horsewoman felt she could do. More than $35,000 later, funds raised have helped Thoroughbred Charity of America's members to be boots on the ground in Del Mar. They've cleaned out a local tack shop with immediate needs of lead lines, shavings, halters and other items to help normalize the horses that are being sheltered there.

Shore's Nexus GoFundMe on Facebook and twitter, began as a hub to fundraise with the people that she knew. One of the founding members of Nexus Racing Club, a horse racing organization for millennials and young professionals interested in breaking into race horse ownership. That group then shared with others, and the fundraising grew. Reaching out to the thoroughbred charity TCA.org with their Horses First fund, was a natural next step for Shore.

Patch spoke with the foundation's owner, Erin Crady, to find out more about how they were helping the evacuated horses in Del Mar. Crady paused her work fundraising for thoroughbred equine victims from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, because today it is all about California.

"We are fundraising to assist thoroughbreds who have been involved in catastrophic events," Crady said. "It leaves an awful feeling in the pit of your stomach, seeing the video of the terrified horses, and knowing that there are so many displaced backstretch workers that will also need to be assisted." Funds raised through Shore's GoFundMe page will help fund these efforts.

"The grooms and backstretch workers on hand dropped everything to help move the horses out of harm's way," Shore said. "Both workers and trainers suffered burns, bet the trainers have insurance but possibly most grooms don't."

One worker, Leo Tapia, documented his efforts on Facebook to try to release horses at the center as the fire neared and was being lauded on social media as a hero.

Meanwhile, workers and volunteers at Del Mar and nearby ranches that had taken in horses from San Luis Rey were still working to identify some of the equines as some continued to search for missing horses and others made grim discoveries.

LRF Racing Club, which lost its 2-year-old colt Oddsmaker in the fire, announced on Twitter that one of its 4-year-old filies, Riri, was still "unaccounted for," then later posted the bleak news that they had "lost a 2nd horse."

"She was tiny and mighty and we will miss her greatly," LRF Racing Club wrote in the subsequent tweet, which thanked those who had "risked their lives for our horses."

Harris D. Auerbach initially tweeted that there was "still no word" on the whereabouts of the 4-year-old colt Puig after the blaze, then tweeted less than a half-hour later, "Unfortunately Puig did not make it and perished in the Lilac Fire at San Luis Rey Downs. RIP handsome boy. I am completely gutted."

But Eclipse Thoroughbred's missing filly, Onassis, turned up at Del Mar on Thursday night.

Eclipse's president, Aron Wellman, posted his own first-hand account online of finding the filly after he headed to Del Mar to help the equine evacuees and "resigned myself to refraining from the selfish mission of finding the one horse Eclipse had stabled at San Luis Rey to simply being a small part of contributing to the greater good."

"... I was overcome with emotion and wrapped my arms around her sweaty, hot, veiny and pulsating neck, and draped my body onto her shoulder," Wellman wrote in the posting on Eclipse Thoroughbred's website about finding her at Del Mar. "In an almost surreal turn of events, Onassis was there for me. She was reassuring me. She was comforting me. A 2-year-old filly who had been through hell and back and seen and lived pure horror was consoling me."

He wrote that "there were tears of sorrow as sad reports trickled in from 1st-hand sources, and tears ofjoy aplenty as trainers, owners and workers were reunited with their horses who could be identified."

"When push comes to shove, we are here to help each other," Crady said.

Donate to the GoFundMe on behalf of the Thoroughbred Charities of America.

Photo by Michael Mroczek on Unsplash