Photo by Shannon Lee Zirkle Cathy Yingling of New Life Equine Rescue stands recently with Jazz and Chyna.

And cheap.

The final sale price was $85.

"They don't bring a lot in winter," said Cathy Yingling, of Johnsville, a horse owner who five years ago started New Life Equine Rescue. She takes in unwanted horses, trains them and adopts them to new homes.

When she started in 2002, there were 6.9 million horses in the United States, according to the American Horse Council. Three years before that, there were 5.3 million horses.

Today the council estimates there are 9.2 million horses. Local horse experts say that a good, show-quality horse can cost next to nothing.

And that's where the problems start.

Harold Domer, director of Frederick County Animal Control, said his officers get two or three calls a week from people concerned about thin, underfed horses that don't seem to have access to proper feed and shelter. Usually, it's enough to talk with the owner, he said, but in June, authorities seized a horse. In neighboring Loudoun County, Va., an area known for expensive show horses, authorities seized 48 starving horses earlier this week.

Paul Miller, president of the Washington County Humane Society and a horse owner, oversaw an impoundment of 75 horses from a Sharpsburg farm in December 2006. Five horses on the farm had already died from starvation. Many others were underweight, and most had had little human contact.

"I think we've had a horse overpopulation problem for years," he said.

Things have been made worse by the economy, he added. The price of hay and gas have gone up -- bales that last year cost $3 now cost about $7.

"You look at the economy," Miller said. "I've been out on a couple of cases where the horses are dropping fat off the top of their backs. It's really hard to gain that weight back in the winter."

Brooke Vrany, at Days End Horse Rescue in Lisbon, near Mount Airy , said the starvation cases they normally see in February and March began in November.

"The other thing we're seeing is people who always wanted a horse, but don't have any experience, getting a horse," Miller said.

Inexperienced horse owners will feed a horse grain, thinking it will fatten the horse, when good quality timothy hay is what a horse needs in winter. They don't realize horses need regular care, and sometimes won't spend what it takes to care for that horse, he said.

Horse markets

There's a lot to horse ownership, Cathy Yingling said. On a cold and windy afternoon, at a farm she leases near New Windsor, she is bringing in Bold Bather and Mariah to feed. Bold Bather is a 23-year-old thoroughbred registered with the Hanoverian Society. She raced, then spent several years as a broodmare before becoming a high-quality dressage horse.

But her owner developed health problems and gave her up. Mariah was with a horse broker on the auction circuit, which can be hard on horses, Miller said.

"I've seen horses stay on a trailer for two or three weeks, getting bought by dealers," he said. "They buy horses at rock-bottom auctions and sell at higher-priced auctions."

Yingling also has several Percherons from Canadian farms used to produce Premarin. Premarin mares are kept pregnant, and the hormone in their urine is used to make a drug that relieves menopausal symptoms. Mares that can no longer reproduce and their foals are often sold cheaply on the open market.

Percherons -- large, docile horses often used for pulling carriages -- are Yingling's favorite. Such horses are also favorites for so-called kill buyers, who will slaughter them for meat, which is then sent to Europe and Japan.

Vrany said closure of the last three U.S. horse slaughterhouses has meant horses ship to either Mexico or Canada, or are left to starve if owners won't find the means to feed them. Horses are slaughtered using methods meant for cows, or sent to Mexico where conditions can be worse.

Yingling said many owners find it easier to ship a horse off to slaughter for a few hundred dollars than spend $200 to $300 to euthanize a horse and have its body rendered. Some don't know the fate. Others would rather not think about it.

"It's not that they don't care," she said. "It's that they can't handle it. They think their kids can't handle it."

Miller said veterinary treatment is another problem for horse owners. There is a nationwide shortage of large animal veterinarians -- Washington County horse owners use vets in Charles Town, W.Va., or Greencastle, Pa., because there are no equine vets in the county.

Horses require regular worming and dental care and their hoofs must be trimmed every six to eight weeks. Then there are the mishaps that any horse owner knows come with horse ownership.

Overbreeding

Though Miller boards and doesn't breed horses, breeding allows for tax benefits that are not given to farms that board and train horses. That, coupled with the desire to produce faster race horses and better show horses has resulted in the overpopulation of horses, he said.

At the same time, 34 percent of horse owners have a household income of less than $50,000 annually, according to the American Horse Council. Those are the owners who feel the pinch the most when the price of hay increases.

"So there's a whole combination of things that contribute," Miller said.

Yingling has had a tough time keeping her rescue going. A year ago, shortly after she left her job, her husband died of a previously undiagnosed heart problem at the age of 51. Now, she's back in the job market and still trying to keep her things going despite mounting costs.

Yingling's horses are a happy bunch. The barn is not fancy, but provides the horses with plenty of shelter and dry hay. Above the fields, hawks and, sometimes, eagles fly. Jazz, the paint yearling foaled last year by one of her rescues, hangs out in the field with his friend, Chyna.

At the top of Yingling's rescue web page is the statement, "NLER is closed to intake." Yingling said she and fellow rescue organizations are overflowing. At the same time, financial donations are getting scarcer. Miller said the advice he gave to a woman who started a rescue in Clear Spring was: "Learn how to say no."

Yingling has placed more than a dozen horses in new homes, and she checks on them regularly. Many are now pleasure or trail riding horses, although one has found a new career as a Washington police horse.

She doesn't dare go to large horse auctions, like the one in New Holland, Pa., where hundreds of horses pass through a single auction. She went to New Holland nearly a year ago and spied a sick, skinny Arabian. "I said, 'I have to take him,'" she said.

That story had a happy ending. She was able to nurse him back to health and find him a good home.

Vrany said horse slaughter, abhorred by most horse welfare advocates, at least meant horses were worth something.

"There just aren't enough rescues to take in the overflow," she said. "There is an influx of cheap horses on the market."

Even bedding, made from lumber shavings, is more expensive because construction is down and shavings are becoming scarcer.

The American Veterinary Medical Association has come out against a proposed federal ban on slaughter, but acknowledges that overbreeding is a problem. Cutting back on breeding and promoting responsible horse ownership is the best way to reduce overpopulation and the number of horses sent to slaughter.

"Horses are, to a certain degree, a luxury," Vrany said. "When the economy is suffering, luxuries are suffering. (Rescues) are full to capacity. We can house hundreds of horses. But we're not going to be able to house them all."

Yingling hopes one day there will not be a need for horse rescues.

"I do believe in time it will come, but it's going to be a long time coming," she said.