Johnson County 4-H rescues three horses, keeps them for club lessons

A local 4-H group isn't just empowering their members to become leaders, they're now in the business of rescuing animals.

The Johnson County Horse and Pony Club is now nursing three horses back to health for next year's 4-H competition. Kyla Salm had never seen horses like this before.

"It was definitely pretty eye-opening how scared they were when we first got them out of the pen," said Salm of Iowa City.

She and other 4-H members helped round up three horse that got loose twice near the Johnson County Fairgrounds last Sunday. Noel Maier manages the 4-H group and got a call saying the owner wanted to give them up.

"A little frustrated because obviously we only had about 45 minutes of daylight left and the horses were already out again so there were concerns about them getting loose on Highway 218," Maier, the superintendent of Johnson County 4-H said.

Maier said it was a miracle that none of the horses were hit by any cars.

"That's when we noticed how bad they really were and their hooves had grown out really bad and they had burs all over them and burs all over their eyes," said Angie Dennis-McMann, the facilities coordinator of the Johnson County Fairgrounds.

The owner gave up the horses to Maier. That's when she learned while they had food and water, they were not getting proper nutrition, making them unhealthy. Maier took them back to her farm, and the 4H group had a lot of work to do.

"We were working on cleaning them up. We spent about four hours grooming them. There were ten of us out here," Maier said.

Now Elf, Mable, and Paris are part of Maier's club. Now kids can learn to ride them and maybe take them to competitions. Salm said she never expected to save lives with her 4-H group.

"We rescued them, got them out of a bad situation and turned it into something where you can make an impact on other people's lives and animals' lives as well," Salm said.

The Johnson County Sheriff's office said while the horses did not have proper nutrition, it does not appear any charges will be filed against the former owner.