Horse dies in fall out of trailer
Staff writer
A horse on its way to an Ottawa rescue facility died Monday when it fell out of the open gate of a trailer on US-50 at Union Rd.
Fredrick Snow, who operates Lake Georgia-Sue, a horse rescue, rehabilitation, and placement organization, was driving the truck pulling the horse trailer.
“Apparently the back gate came open on the trailer and the horse fell out,” sheriff Rob Craft said.
The horse landed close to the shoulder of the road but was blocking one lane of the highway when callers began contacting the sheriff’s office.
It’s unknown why the gate came open, Craft said.
“In the meantime we got notified by Chase County that they’d stopped someone with the back gate flapping open,” he said. “That’s when he discovered the horse was gone.”
Craft said Snow returned to the location Monday and made arrangements with Kansas Department of Transportation, which had moved the horse’s carcass off the roadway, to retrieve it Tuesday morning.
“He came back before we were done,” Craft said.
Last year, LGS placed 52 horses in new homes. Five were returned to LGS and placed in new homes within a few days of their return.
Prospective buyers come from Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, and Wyoming. Horses come in from Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa.