Oklahoma Tornado Wipes out Celestial Acres
May 23, 2013
Dear
Readers,
As a Californian from birth, I
find it unimaginable to live in Oklahoma, or anywhere that funnels of death
come from the sky. Having said that, in the early 1970’s, Jim and I were making
our way back to California from Shenandoah Downs in West Virginia, and found ourselves training
horses at a small ranch outside of Ardmore Oklahoma.
We lived in a small un-insulated clapboard
house which was provided by the ranch. I have some interesting stories about
our time in Oklahoma, but the one I will share here is the one that involved
the night of the tornado warning. At the time, there was very little around the
area, flat land with few trees. I kept a vigil, crouched by the window, arms
crossed on the sill, leaning my forehead on the cool panes of glass. Through
the night, I hovered, visions of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz spinning through
my thoughts.
There was no storm cellar, no
other buildings, other than the barns and the main ranch house, for many miles
around. We were alone with nothing between us and a deadly twister, except the
poor protection of the ancient clapboard structure we occupied.
It was a very long night for me, and despite
the fact no tornados were sighted, within a few months we were headed down the
road, in the teeth of a blizzard, anxious to get back to California, and the
paradise it represented in our memories. California where the earth shakes, and
structures fall, but to a true
Californian this is so much better than funnels coming from the sky, leaving in
their wake a land that looks as though a giant wood chipper has run amuck.
We have all seen the images on television, and the internet of the devastation
visited upon Oklahoma and its residents, both two legged and four legged. There
are no safe rooms for horses, cows, pigs or any kind of livestock. What happened at Celestial Acres Training
Center in Moore, Okla., is a horseman’s worst nightmare. Fire is the usual fear
we have to guard against in keeping our charges safe.
Getting the poor horses at
Celestial Downs and the area surrounding it out of harm’s way was beyond anyone’s
power. There was no time to load the
horses in trailers and evacuate them. There was only one hope―the tornado screaming across the land would miss them, and
that hope was not to be.
The numbers are unclear, but it is
believed up to 80 helpless horses occupied the barns that were leveled. One
barn was left standing and it held up to 25 horses whose lives were spared. So
far a total of 34 horses have been found alive.
With other horse farms in the area
there will surely be further reports of dead or mortally wounded horses. There
is no food left for them, no water that is not contaminated. People were
reduced to using bottled water to help hydrate the horses and livestock that
survived.
Remington Park in Oklahoma City
and Heritage Park sales complex are taking in animals until they can find their
owners.
The Thoroughbred
Racing Association of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing
Association have jointly established a charitable account to assist horsemen
impacted by the tornado. All donations
received will go directly to horsemen, according to a statement distributed
late Tuesday by these two organizations.
Credit or
debit card donations to the relief effort can be made by calling the OQHRA at
(405) 216-0440. Checks can be made payable to the TRAO Benevolence Fund or the
OQHRA Benevolence Fund, with the memo
line to read 2013 Tornado. Donations can be sent to TRAO at 2620 NW
Expressway, Suite A, Oklahoma City, Okla., 73112, or the OQHRA, P.O. Box 2907,
Edmond, Okla., 73083.
My thoughts keep returning to the soft
brown eyes of the horses I trained over the years and how they would look at me from within the stalls they occupied, they were always so hopeful. They wanted from me nothing more than a gentle
hand, food and water. I can only imagine what the people who owned the horses
lost in this tragedy must be feeling. Each face that use to look to them for
nurturing is gone, and in such a horrible way and there was nothing they could
do to save them.
Those who died so tragically are beyond our help, the ones that survived are now the ones left
in need.
Take care my
friends, all life is precious,
Shelley
Riley
