For those of you who don’t know the story:

    In the fall of 2006 Roseville Livestock Auction confronted us about a video we had taken in 2005, edited and posted on our website and demanded that we remove it from our web site, stating that it was slander.  As there is nothing slanderous in the video, our Board of Directors rejected their demands. The next attack Roseville Livestock Auction took on NorCal Equine Rescue was personally telling our founders that if we ever took any more pictures they would throw us out.  Following their lawful request we stopped taking pictures of the auction. Roseville Livestock Auction was still not happy because they had not found a way to kick NER out. One of their auctioneers by the name of Matt left nasty phone messages with demands and threats.
   We decided they needed a little time to cool off so we did not attend the auction until November 11th, 2007, almost a full year later, and here is what happened!

   While quietly sitting near the top row of the auction room, NER staff Jason, Tawnee and Kimmy were shocked and surprised to suddenly be confronted by an obviously upset and distraught auctioneer, Matt. His loud tirade, which attracted the attention of the entire audience, consisted of threats, insults, foul language and demands to immediately leave the property. He said that the video that is on our website is slandering Roseville Livestock Auction. Click here to watch the video. Jason calmly and firmly asked if the auctioneer was the owner, and he denied being the owner but insisted he is “the boss”. Jason requested to be allowed to discuss the situation further with the owner of the property. After a lot of profanity, “The boss” took Jason and Tawnee to the office and left to find the real owner. An older guy came back with “the boss” and immediately, in a very angry tone yelled “We don’t need your kind here, get out now! OUT!” Tawnee asked to be able to retrieve our items that were left in the auction room and was told, “No, out!” Politely insisting, Tawnee was finally allowed to retrieve our items. The older guy was yelling and screaming, and he grabbed a couple of the auction workers to help “escort” Jason from the property. At one point, the older man got right in Jason’s face, looked passed the 9 month old infant Jason was holding in his arms, and yelled “I’m going to punch you in the face and knock you out for a week. If you ever come back to this auction you won’t be leaving standing up.” While Tawnee and Kimmy where heading out to the truck “the boss” Matt confronted Tawnee and threatened that he would make sure that we would be kicked out of any auctions that he works at if we try to attend.
 After receiving approximately 5 minutes of verbal abuse from the staff and management of Roseville Livestock Auction, NER Staff was able to get into the truck and leave the property.

    As Roseville Livestock Auction had threatened NER staff,  “I’m going to punch you in the face and knock you out for a week. If you ever come back to this auction you won’t be leaving standing up,” NER’s BOD decided that the only way to get their attention without having our staff punched out was to have a protest.

    We posted what had happen to our staff at the Roseville Livestock Auction on our website and the plans for the protest.  Shortly after that, Sandy Blakeland, one of the auction owners, called us up spoke with us. She was very nice to talk with and stated that she had her daughter watch the video and Donna Capudo had also watched it and both saw nothing wrong or slanderous with it. She apologized for her quarter of the ownership for the way we were treated. We thanked her and it was nice to hear a friendly voice there after the treatment that our staff had received at the last auction.

   We had planned on bringing our 10 horse trailer and bringing a bunch of horses home if they let us back into the auction. Sadly 2 days before the auction one of our little rescued ponies got extremely sick and had to be rushed to the vet. She had to go in for an immediate surgery and have a tracheotomy to save her life. She is still at the vet living in a padded room hooked up to fluids and still unable to breath without the tracheotomy tube. It looks like she will need to stay at the vet for at least 10 days. The vet bill will most likely be over $1000.00 when all is said and done.   That left almost no money to save auction horses from a unknown future and the ones we do save needed to be ones that can be easy to adopt out to help with this huge vet bill.

   We arrived at Roseville Livestock Auction about 8:40 am and the protesters started showing up to support NER. The goal and focus of the protest was to let NER back in to save horses.  Some of the protesters had their own spin that they wanted to add to the protest, to help bring awareness to what is happening to horses all over the United States as well.  3 TV stations covered the event and 1 newspaper.

  While Channel 13 was filming and interviewing, the older guy that had kicked NER out at the last auction came out and said that we could come back into the auction. Jason wanted to verify that he was not going to get punched out if he went on to the property and reminded the older guy about his threat at the last auction. Being on camera, he denied it.

   Shortly after we where told that we could come back, we went onto the property and spoke with Mark Blakeland and then went to see Sandy. We gave Sandy a “big thank you” and she wanted to tell us that Matt would be leaving us along and we would not have any trouble.  We headed back out to the protesters and told them that it was officially over and thanked them for standing with us.

  We brought 2 horses and wished we could have gotten more. The horses we got were horses that were being ridden through, and when the non-ridden horses started coming in, there where a lot horses there that sold for $50.00 and $75.00. If we didn’t have that huge vet bill hanging over our heads we would have jumped to save them as well. There where some poor horses there that broke our hearts as they really needed help but there was nothing we could do, as there was no money to help them.  It’s sad that poor lives are at stake and the only thing that is in the way of helping them is the lack of funds.

  When Tawnee was bringing our horses out, there was a hold up as one of the horses (that we didn’t buy) didn’t want to load in the trailer.  They had backed the trailer up to the alleyway and had him cornered between the alleyway, the gate and the trailer. One of the guys trying to load the horse grabbed a 2x4 and started to attempt to whack the poor horse. The older guy who had kicked NER the month before abruptly interrupted the other guy and told him to stop. It was so nice to see that!

  The 2 horses the came back to NER are thin and need a lot of TLC. They are both really sweet horses and we are so happy that they are here safe and sound.

   As soon as NER has some more funds and doesn’t have any looming bills, we are planning on saving some of these $50-75 horses. Until then, if any one is interested in donating the funds to buy them and then sponsoring them until they are adopted let us know.

 Thanks! NER Staff