SALEM, Ohio — When the skeletal remains of four thoroughbred horses were discovered Oct. 26 inside a locked round pen at the former Pure Gold Stables in Salem, shock waves spread quickly through northeast Ohio’s tight-knit equestrian community. They reached Boardman, Ohio, resident Erica Wenger right away, who boards horses and owns two of her own.
Amid her grief, Wenger believes the tragedy could have been prevented. The Columbiana County Humane Society has gone on two years without a humane agent; Wenger believes if one had followed up on previously documented concerns at Pure Gold, the outcome there might have been different.
She launched a Change.org petition urging the Humane Society to release its file on any cruelty or neglect involving horses at the Pure Gold facility to the Columbiana County Prosecutor’s Office. The petition also calls for an open and transparent criminal inquiry into the alleged abuse, along with veterinary evaluations, accountability for those involved and meaningful action to prevent future cruelty. The petition has already garnered nearly 20,000 signatures.
“We really had to corner the humane society to make the right choice,” she said. “I want real follow-through with meaningful consequences when neglect and cruelty occur.”
As the equine community debates what comes next, advocates say the Pure Gold case reflects more than a local failure and highlights gaps in the nation’s equine-welfare system, where overworked rescues, stretched resources and inconsistent oversight leave horses vulnerable to neglect and abuse.
No reports
Marie Hernandez, shelter manager of the Columbiana County Humane Society, confirmed the organization has had no humane agent on staff for about two years, but said they’ve still responded to reports of animal abuse.
In the absence of a humane agent, the humane society has relied on cooperation with local police, the sheriff’s office and other agencies to follow up on complaints, handle emergencies and accept owner surrenders, she said.
When asked if the lack of an agent affected the investigation at Pure Gold, Hernandez was unequivocal. “No, absolutely not,” she replied.
“Theoretically, if we would have had a report about Pure Gold previously in the past year and a half, two years, we would have followed up on that.”
A humane agent had investigated the facility in the past after employees reported concerns about feeding and care, as noted in the sheriff’s office report from Oct. 26. But she said at that time the agent “did not have a reason to seize animals or take any further action.”
Regarding the Change.org petition, the first action it demanded was underway from the start, Hernandez said: the humane society’s file on Pure Gold was turned over to the prosecutor’s office right away.
Hernandez declined to comment further on the case, noting only that she believes “there will be a lot of closure,” though it may take time.
Safety nets
Meanwhile, nearly 100 advocates, horse owners and concerned residents from northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania gathered Nov. 16 at the Eleanor Acres Event Center in Lisbon for a memorial called “Justice for the Final Four,” honoring the horses found dead at Pure Gold.
The group circulated a petition urging state lawmakers to strengthen Ohio’s animal cruelty laws amid their calls for reform, including the creation of working groups to draft letters, regulatory recommendations and improved communication among advocacy networks. Organizers plan additional public meetings, legislative outreach and ongoing community organizing.
As the community mobilizes, many are taking stock of the safety nets in place for horses in need. Heidi Sandrev, executive director of Angels Haven Horse Rescue in Grafton, Ohio, stressed that responsibility for animal care is essential and that reaching out for help is the right choice when someone can no longer provide it.
“We rescue horses that are either neglected, abused, unwanted, and we rehabilitate them to their fullest potential, at their speed, and utilize them to their fullest,” Sandrev said. Her all-volunteer organization has operated for 20 years, supporting both horses and people. Sandrev highlighted the practical challenges of horse care, from the financial burden to Ohio laws that classify horses as livestock, complicating the removal of neglected animals without agency involvement.
Sandrev described the individualized care required for rescued horses.
“Sometimes they come in very, very thin and need nutrition before we can even work to see what their potential would be. Sometimes they come in with significant trust issues, and you have to even form a bond before you can even see what they can do.” In rare cases, horses arrive in conditions so severe that humane euthanasia is necessary.
She emphasized that people can learn broader life lessons from horses such as trust, responsibility, compassion and empathy. Interacting with horses, Sandrev said, inspires many people to be their better selves. The organization also engages with the community through hands-on programs and educational clinics for schools, seniors and children.
For volunteer Dana Bell, time spent at the rescue is as enriching for her family as it is for the horses it saves.
“We’ve gotten so much out of this organization,” she said. “Nothing teaches you perseverance, fortitude and grace, because you have to give yourself grace for messing up. You have to give the horse grace for messing up. It’s a learning curve, and those are life lessons that will serve you well. And we really feel blessed to have gotten this experience.”
Systemic weaknesses
For all the emotional toll and sense of responsibility people who care for horses often feel, Joanna Grossman, equine program director of the Animal Welfare Institute, a nonprofit advocacy organization, said the Salem case is a shocking outlier that exposes long-standing weaknesses in the country’s patchwork equine welfare system.
Cruelty, she said, rarely happens in isolation but often in places where rescues are overstretched, owners are overwhelmed and small nonprofits are expected to catch crises before they escalate.
“It’s really a heroic effort, on the part of these equine rescues, to do the work that they do, because they are seeing firsthand animals that have been through some really tough situations,” she said. Many rescues operate with limited staff and budgets, responding to starving or injured horses under heavy strain, she said, noting that safety-net resources aren’t always accessible.
Thoroughbreds can be especially at risk, she said, because so many are bred and retired young. Some find strong second careers, but others end up at auctions and risk entering the slaughter pipeline. While aftercare programs have improved, overbreeding and inconsistent tracking persist. Still, Grossman sees reasons to be optimistic.
“Progress has been made, and we are on a decent trajectory. Let’s put it that way, but there’s still a long way to go,” she said.
Kirsten Green, executive director of the Retired Racehorse Project, said most thoroughbreds “come off the track with a mindset towards work,” but even with a strong aftercare network, some still end up with owners unable or unfit to care for them.
Racehorses aren’t more likely to face cruelty, she said, but their visibility makes cases stand out. They are easy to track while racing, but once they retire, “that really falls apart,” leaving some far from safety nets.
“We do still have, in this country, an issue around how we catch unwanted horses and keep them from falling through the cracks,” she said.
Green cautioned against assuming a single explanation for what happened in Ohio. Neglect often reflects financial strain, lack of resources or mental health struggles.
Any person who is capable of potentially letting horses starve in their pens “is not well in some way, shape or form,” she said. A new Jockey Club traceability initiative may help, but information-sharing remains a major hurdle.
“We have a real problem with information sharing amongst entities,” she said, with legal risks discouraging organizations from flagging concerns. Still, she believes moments like this can spark overdue reform.
“Things like this have to happen in order for us to kind of increase our level of awareness around things that need to be addressed.”
Clear head
Veronica Meer, a Norwalk-based equine veterinarian, said the days after the Salem discovery brought a flood of calls, texts and social-media messages from distressed people looking for answers long before any could exist. She has been urging people to take a breath.
In cases like this, Meer said, the public often wants immediate clarity, but determining when and how an animal died requires specialized forensic work, and only if investigators can collect viable samples.
University forensic veterinarians can analyze hair and bone marrow to estimate time of death and body condition, she said, and sometimes run toxicology tests, though only when materials are preserved well enough. It’s a slow process that rarely produces a single, definitive conclusion.
Meer said the early photos of the horses’ remains in the round pen circulating online “causes a very visceral response,” shaping assumptions long before investigators have basic facts. In other cases she has handled, she noted, the initial story “isn’t necessarily exactly what potentially is going on,” even when a scene looks dire.
She warned that several explanations remain possible, including non-malicious ones that are often overlooked. Illness, toxins, financial strain or panic stemming from the unexpected death or suffering of animals can influence how owners react when they die, she said, a firsthand witness to cases where fear or lack of resources led to bad decisions rather than intentional cruelty.
“I have seen human beings do weird (expletive),” she said. Deliberate starvation happens, she added, but far less often than people assume.
Her years responding to humane calls have taught her to avoid simple narratives.
“You really have to keep a clear head and kind of let the case show you what potentially happened,” she said. “There’s lots of questions without answers as of yet.”
Meer said she hopes investigators are given the space to work methodically. As they continue their review, she said she will be looking for what she always looks for: evidence, not speculation. Only then, she said, will anyone be able to answer the community’s central question — what really happened inside that round pen, and why?
