State returns 8 horses to Bar Harbor stable

BAR HARBOR – She may not have all of them back, but local stable owner Joann Sullivan got to welcome home Wednesday eight of the 18 horses that state animal welfare agents took from her in April.

Sullivan and a few of her friends, one of them taking pictures with a small digital camera, met the trailer at the road when it showed up just before noon Wednesday to return the horses. One by one she walked the animals down the long dirt driveway to the barn, checking their gaits and looking them over for possible cuts or scrapes from the ride.

Inside the barn, the horses neighed, ate fresh hay and sniffed each other through gaps in the boards that separate the stalls. Some of the horses had not seen each other since the state took them six months ago, Sullivan said.

“It feels incredible,” Sullivan said of having the horses back. “I can’t believe they’re here.”

Not all of them are back, though. In all, animal welfare agents took 18 horses from Sullivan’s Eochaidh Stables on April 25. Three that were not owned by Sullivan but were being boarded at her farm were returned to their owners, and another died while in state custody.

This summer, Sullivan contested the removal in Ellsworth District Court and, by most accounts, won. In September, Judge Bernard Staples ordered that nine of the 14 horses kept by the state should be returned immediately. He noted that by the state’s standards, the nine horses were not considered to be thin when they were taken. The other five horses were considered to be thin, very thin or in poor condition, he said, and so should be kept by the state until they are deemed healthy enough to be returned to Sullivan.

The state asked Staples to reconsider his order, but on Oct. 5 the judge upheld his original decision.

One of the nine horses that was to be returned to Sullivan was not with the first eight that arrived Wednesday. The ninth horse is owned by Clyde Ford, one of Sullivan’s former employees, and needed to be sedated before it could be transferred back to Eochaidh Stables. Sullivan and state officials were trying to contact Ford on Wednesday to get his permission to sedate his horse so it could be brought back to the Crooked Road farm.

Sullivan, who acknowledged being stretched financially thin last winter, said Wednesday that she might not be able to afford to keep her farm because she has lost thousands of dollars in revenue this summer by not having horses on the property. She has said she earns money by boarding horses, giving riding lessons and offering trail rides.

According to a press release issued by Sullivan, a support fund for her has been set up at Union Trust bank. Her legal expenses are nearly $15,000, and she has to reimburse the state for the cost of boarding the five horses that were underweight, the statement indicated.

But on Wednesday, Sullivan was just happy to have most of the horses back where she says they belong.

“I haven’t heard this sound in a while,” she said, standing in the barn while the horses noisily munched on the hay in their stalls.