Shame on Cascade Stables (or Mom, You Were Right)

From the title of this post, you can guess that our experience walking horses in the Krewe D'Etat parade was not a positive one. Allow me to recount the whole experience and you can see for yourself why.

We arrived at the stables at 3pm Friday along with the other walkers, grabbed a Cascade Stables t-shirt and hat and waited around for about 45 minutes. During that time we learned a few things from people who had already walked horses in a parade the day before. We found out about how much we would get paid ($30 from the stable, plus tips from the riders), that the horses were not owned by the stable, and that they were probably going to dope the horses. This last statement was affirmed when I saw a stable employee walking around with a cup full of syringes.

After the waiting around period, the stable owner, Barbe Smith, came out to talk to us. She told us three things. One, the riders pre-tipped, so don't bug them for more tips. Two, pretend like you know what you're doing even if you don't. And three, don't stop under the overpass because someone could die. Then they loaded up the horses and the walkers and took us to the start of the parade route.

On the way to the parade, we met a woman who is boarding her horse at the stables and she told us a little more about the horses we would be leading. Most of them had never walked in parades before and had been purchased at auction months earlier. The stable rents the horses from outside parties specifically for the parades and afterward the horses likely go back to auction. This woman we met had been riding some of the horses over the previous week and told us that they are not well-trained riding horses, either. We also heard from the other walkers that the people who would be riding the horses did not necessarily know anything about riding.

One scary thing that happened was when they were unloading the horses from one of the trailers. I didn't see what caused this, but one of the horses freaked out coming off the trailer and either fell or reared and then fell. I looked over just in time to see the horse flip onto its back. It stayed down for several moments, but eventually got up and seemed to be okay.

I was given a small chestnut horse named Sport to lead. He looked like an older horse and was fairly calm throughout all the excitement of marching bands practicing nearby, floats lining up, and revelers passing through. I met my rider soon after we got there and he told me he had been doing this for 25 years, knew how to ride, and could go off-tether. I confirmed that with Barbe before the parade started and she said it was fine. We had to wait around for probably another half an hour, during which time my rider came by and fed Sport carrots, stable hands checked the tack and added more gold spray paint to Sport's hooves, and one stable employee injected my horse with some sort of tranquilizer.

By this point it was clear that those of us walking the horses were barely regarded as people. No stable employee told me anything about what to expect in the parade or why they were doping the horses, nor did anyone give any of the walkers instructions about leading horses, even though most of the other walkers we talked to had zero experience working with horses. By this point Brendan and I were both infuriated and didn't know what to do other than our best in leading these horses and trying to keep our horses, our riders, and ourselves safe throughout the parade.

So the riders mounted up and the parade began. The next scary thing that happened was a horse got spooked by something (there were a myriad of things that could have scared an untrained horse. The flambeaux were blamed. Flambeaux are people who walk alongside the parade with giant flaming sticks), reared, and the rider fell off. He had a bloody lip, and I heard that the horse had stepped on him after he fell off. That horse was pulled and the rider was going to be taken to the hospital. I never heard anything else about how he was. (Brendan: I overheard my rider talking with the man in the car ahead of us. The fellow who went to the hospital had no critical injuries.)

We continued on, and once we were walking down Magazine Street I took the lead off my horse, but stayed up near his head in case anything went wrong. My rider was having fun and seemed confident, and Sport seemed fine aside from uncomfortable from being held on too tight a rein. The parade moved very slowly, and there were times when we would stop for what seemed like a long time before moving very slowly again.

About 15 or so minutes into the parade at a point when we were stopped, I noticed Sport pawing the ground a lot, and keeping his head very low to ground, and behaving in a way I've seen horses behave when they are about to try and lie down. I also noticed that his neck was very sweaty. I told my rider I was afraid Sport was going to try and lie down and asked him if I could put the lead back on and walk him around. He was fine with that. I began leading Sport in circles and about the time we completed our third circle Sport went down. Barbe's son, who'd been leading a horse just ahead of mine, handed his horse off to Brendan and came running over. It all happened so fast, but I remember telling my rider to let go of the reins and Barbe's son helping to get his feet out of the stirrups. Then Barbe's son took the lead and got Sport up again, and I went over to my rider and helped him up. He was a little shaken, but fine, and ready to get back on if Sport was okay.

Sport was not okay. This horse had been fine when unloaded from the trailer. He was calm, but also very alert and energetic. But when he went down, he was sluggish and sweaty and could barely hold his head up. The only reason he went down was because of the tranquilizer. I told Barbe's son I didn't feel comfortable leading a horse that might fall down, and he said he would lead Sport for awhile. He kept saying he would fine once the parade got moving again. So, once it was moving, my rider got back on, but Sport was not sound. His hind right leg wasn't moving quite right, and Barbe's son made the judgment call to take him out of the parade. My rider ended up getting into a convertible just ahead of us and riding in that for the rest of the parade.

Barbe's son took Sport back, which meant Brendan got to lead his horse, which was carrying the Krewe captain (the organizer of the parade). I took turns with another walker leading a horse named Rita. Rita was hard to lead. She constantly wanted to go faster. The man who was leading her was doing his best, but he had very minimal horse experience, and I had a hard time with her too even though I have a lot of horse experience. In the circumstances, though, it was nearly impossible to get a horse to listen.

It was around 10pm when we finally got to the end of the parade. They loaded up the horses as they arrived, but since they were staggered throughout the parade we had to wait awhile for everyone to show up. By this time, we had been working steadily for 5 hours with no breaks or water. They did not offer us water at this time either, though some of our fellow walkers had acquired alcohol from their riders at the end of the parade. We had to go back to the stables in order to get paid, so we chatted with the other walkers while we waited. No one else we talked to had had horses rear or fall down, but Brendan did hear that a total of ten horses had been taken out that night, both from the Krewe D'Etat parade and the parade just ahead of it.

I'm still so angry about it. These people, Cascade Stables, and namely Barbe Smith, the owner, are running a completely shoddy operation that is dangerous to the horses, the walkers, and the riders. They are putting everyone in the worst possible situation. The horses that are terrified because they've never been in parades before (let alone Mardi Gras parades, which have huge screaming crowds along the entire route who come running up the horses to try and get beads or doubloons from the riders), and to try and counter that they drug the horses, which causes a host of other possible problems, like what happened with my horse. Then there are walkers who are nervous because they have no idea what they're doing who are at risk for injury. One woman we met who had walked in a parade the day before had a broken toe from a horse stepping on her foot. Something like that could happen even to a horse-person, but if these people were given just a little bit of training it would greatly minimize the risk. And it's not as if there wasn't time. We were all at the stables just standing around for nearly an hour. They could have given all the walkers a chance to lead the horses around and simply get used to it. And then there's the riders who don't know what they're doing. I had to continually tell the rider on Rita to let up on the reins. He apologized for this and said he kept holding them even though he knew he didn't need to because when she started moving he just instinctually grabbed at them as something to hold onto.

Horses, riders and walkers are getting injured because of what Cascade Stables is doing. And for what? Just to make a buck. Part of me almost wishes one of the riders (because they're the ones with any kind of rank and money) would get seriously injured to draw attention to what's happening. But I don't really wish that. Instead, I'm going to try and draw attention to what's happening. I'm going to wait until we go to the stables on Thursday to pick up our checks so I can try and find out what they're using to dope the horses, then I'm going to write to both The Gambit and the Times-Picayune. I'm hoping this will be the last year Cascade Stables is able to provide horses for Mardi Gras parades.

Fun in the Snow

Brendan and Guy

+ Mariah

Apparently Brendan smells good

Guy says Happy Holidays to all

This is Zephyr

And here is Stina