By Jillian Risberg 

Her connection to horses runs deep; Jessica Lasusa rode the equines as a child and teen and has loved them ever since. 

“Being around horses has always made me feel happy and at peace,” Lasusa says. 

Seeing these sensitive creatures in pain or suffering in any way is just too much to bear. 

“I learned about the sad existence of Standardbred horses when their racing careers end, and vowed that as soon as I was financially able, I would rescue one,” says the school administrator.

Standardbred horses are pacers and trotters; the ones that race at places like Yonkers Raceway. No longer winning money on the track, they are sold at horse auctions and most often purchased by the Amish to pull their buggies on the roadways. 

Lasusa says unfortunately, this is a very hard life for a horse, as pounding on hard pavement ruins their body before it is time. Once again, these horses are usually thrown away, back to a horse auction, only this time the only person interested in buying it is a “kill buyer.” 

“A kill buyer buys as many horses as cheaply as possible and then has a direct contract with slaughterhouses in Canada or Mexico, or both,” she says. “The kill buyer sends young, old, healthy and sick horses to slaughter by the truckload; week after week after week. These horses are butchered for their meat and eaten in Japan or Europe, or used for dog food or big cats in zoos.”

For the school administrator, it was a no-brainer — she rescued two standardbred horses: one from a rescue that pulled him from the kill buyer, and another “I pulled directly from the kill buyer, myself,” she says. 

If these two horses, River and Jam had not been purchased for “meat price,” she says they would have been sent directly to slaughter.  

“Unfortunately; many, many horses don’t make it out alive,” says Lasusa. 

She houses her two rescued Standardbreds at a boarding barn in Budd Lake… Far Away Farm, owned by friend and fellow horse enthusiast, Jill Gordon.

According to the school administrator, Standardbred horses can live well into their mid-30s. 

“Their racing careers typically end when they are eight years old, many times earlier,” she says. “Their Amish buggy days last until their mid-teens. The majority of horses in the kill buyer’s lots are in their teens with their whole lives ahead of them.”

After they retire from the track, especially if someone doesn’t intervene — can be a death sentence for the horses. 

“These horses are sent on livestock trailers with no food and no water to either a Canadian or Mexican slaughter plant where they are inhumanely butchered alive,” LaSusa says. “Many times, the horses don’t even survive the grueling trip and die on the floor of the trailer, trampled by other horses.”

To be able to save these precious beings is everything to the horse lover. 

“I have waited my whole life to rescue horses,” she says.  “So far, I have rescued two but I am nowhere near finished. As long as I am alive, I will try to find ways to help horses who are at risk of slaughter.”

When the school administrator rescued her second horse, the kill buyer told her it was a gelding, or a male horse. When picking it up they realized that she was a mare, or female horse. 

The name that they recorded for the male horse was “David’s Jam,” now they simply call her Jam.

“Jam arrived from the kill pen in horrendous health and needed to gain well over 100 pounds,” says Lasusa. “After a year and a half, she is in perfect condition!”

If any reader is interested in adopting or helping a Standardbred horse, they can reach out to the Standardbred Retirement Foundation in Cream Ridge, NJ at adoptahorse.org. So many horses are in need. You can make a difference!