September's Horse? of the month - Elvis the Pony

In July, 1998, the Santa Clara County SPCA asked Redwings to help them to determine the condition of over 100 ponies running free on 160 acres in the east hills of San Jose. Their owner, who lost the land to the bank, made an effort to keep the ponies by moving them to a neighbor’s property. The neighbor, afraid to get stuck with a herd of ponies, had them rounded up and sent to a local auction yard. This meant the slaughter buyers would be able to bid on them (this was prior to Prop. 6 passing). To us it seemed grossly unfair that the ponies should have to lose their lives because of their owner’s financial problems, so we stepped in and asked that they be sold at private auction in order to protect them from slaughter. This request was denied, so we tried to get a court order to stop the sale. When that did not work, we informed the media and guess what? That worked! Local newspaper and TV stations aired the plight of the ponies and on the day of the sale community members were there to outbid the slaughter buyers. The media also showed up for the sale and filmed the whole process.Elvis was one of those ponies and as a result of the sale, he came to Redwings to live out his life in peace.

We chose Elvis because September is noted for Labor Day and ponies were used for hard work including hauling coal from the mines in Wales (Welsh ponies). These ponies seldom saw the light of day - living and dying pulling the coal carts from deep beneath the earth's surface.