Video: Soldier's donated horse heads for slaughter

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FALL CITY, Wash. – When a local soldier offered his horses for free because he was deploying to Iraq, a Pierce County woman said she wanted them for 4H.

But just hours later, one of the horses was sold for slaughter.

Watching the thoroughbred run now, it's hard to imagine that he was sold for slaughter just 10 days ago, and for just $150.

"I was upset. I was a Marine for 16 years before I was in the Army. I was very angry," said Dennis Rutherford of Elma, who had good reason to be angry.

The horse "Petersburg Knight" used to be his, but when he learned he was going to Iraq, he put an ad on Craigslist offering Petersburg and another thoroughbred, "William," free to a good home.

A Pierce County woman contacted him right away saying she wanted the horses for 4H.

"These two guys were just wonderful horses, so I figured it would be good for kids to get to ride 'em," said Rutherford.

So it came quite as a surprise when a few hours later, Petersburg was auctioned off at an Enumclaw horse sale.

There were no good offers, so the auctioneer bought the horse himself.

"I bought it for slaughter," said Ron Mariotti, Enumclaw Sales Pavilion.

Rutherford says he couldn't believe it.

"She just figured I was some dumb old Army guy and she could get away with it, and I just happened to have friends sitting at the auction," he said.

Mesue Babcock told KING 5 she did sell the horse just hours after picking it up, but she did it because it was aggressive toward her horses.

Byron: "Did you call and ask him if he wanted the horse back?"

Babcock: "No, I didn't call him because he said he didn't want them."

Byron: "But he thought you were taking them for 4H?"

Mesue: "Yes"

Babcock says she had no idea she was sending the horse to its death.

"I told I didn't want him sold for meat. I had no idea there were any slaughters in there," she said.

But Mariotti says Babcock never specified she didn't want Petersburg sold for slaughter.

Mariotti: "No, absolutely not."

Byron: "If she had?"

Mariotti: "If she had, I couldn't have bought it."

Byron: "Why?"

Mariotti: "If she had requested no-slaughter buyers, I'd have had to let the crowd buy it for whatever it would have brought."

Petersburg finished sixth in a race at Emerald Downs three years ago.

Cathy Atkinson, who runs a popular Internet blog, learned about what happened and negotiated to buy him for $400.

"You can't save them all, but this situation was so shocking, we just felt like we really had to save him," she said.

Atkinson says Petersburg is getting along fine with her mare and he's being adopted by a man who plans to use him for trail riding.

Horses can't be slaughtered in the United States. That's against the law. But they can be purchased here by so-called kill-buyers and shipped to Canada and Mexico for slaughter. A lot of the meat goes for human consumption in other countries.

When Petersburg Knight was a yearling, he sold for $15,000, but he only raced twice.