[sandylg]

There is a women in Anza Ca. who claims she is a non-profit horse rescue facility but also advertises quite boldly that they also take in boarders, give lessons and training. ( she claims to be the head trainer and is not even certified, another self proclaimed horse trainer!) ) Is this legal? I did not know you could do both. Supposedly she has a lawyer working on this but what do you all think? Sounds fishy to me.

[iwovjerry]

yeah i am pretty sure its legal at the rescue i volunteer at it is a non profit we offer horse riding lessons and we pay for ranch hands it is legal as far as i am concerned.

[NChic]

Yes, I know of several rescues that give lessons and the owners also train other horses. Non-profit doesn't mean you can't make money... it just means that you can't spend the money on anything other than the running of the facility.

Edited to mention that there can be operations at the facility other than the rescue... ie training or lessons.

[Oreogurl]

Our barn is non-profit and we have boarding, lessons, and many other services. all of the income from that is used to pay for intructors, workers, feed, leasing the horses since we lease them from someone insted of owning them, and some goes to the camp because we are connected to a camp. It is a really nice place. I mean it isn't very nice because it is non-profit but it is nice like the people are all really nice.

[Mikado]

Hello everyone. Although I believe that it is important, please excuse the length of this post. I came across this forum posting last night while working on search engine listings for our organization's website. And indeed, something sounds fishy. I am quite saddened by it (and maybe even a little disgusted...) My name is Mike Hitchcock and I am a board member and volunteer for the organization that Sandy is talking about. While Sandy was careful not to mention us by name, the horse world is only so big and it gets really small very quickly as you start talking about horse rescues in a small, close community such as Anza, CA. Sandy is acting as a bit of a "wolf in sheep's clothing" here. She has worked with the "women in Anza, CA" (Gina Perrin) in the past rescuing horses and interacting with non-profits. I believe she is well aware of what a non-profit can and cannot do. I believe her main purpose here is to propagate a vendetta she has, by spreading negative rumors. Very sad considering we are trying to help save animals from the slaughter house and/or from starving to death after being abandoned. While I have no desire to interact with Sandy or get into a "flame" war with anyone, I would like to respond to her comments and provide our information to anyone reading this thread. Our organization, Heavenly Horse Haven, Inc. is a registered California non-profit corporation. We are currently working with our attorney (who is, unfortunately, slower than molasses) to achieve our 501(c)(3) status from the IRS. Believe me when I say we are "non-profit" - this month alone, I have personally donated over $1,000 to help cover our operating expenses. While we have a few boarders, boarding is not our primary purpose or focus. In fact of the 23 horses we currently care for, only 3 of them are boarders. In addition to horses we also care for rescued llamas, goats, pigs and other animals. Lessons and training provide us with a valuable mechanism to achieve one of our main objectives. It allows us to provide instruction to the general public on the proper care, feeding, needs and responsibility of ownership for these animals. Not too long ago, we were able to collaborate on a horse rescue with Sheryl Lynde - a certified John Lyons trainer. You can read about it on her website (http://sheryllyndeclinics.com/savanah.htm) and on our website (http://heavenlyhorsehaven.org/savannah.html). Since then we have enjoyed her continued support with Savannah and other rescue animals. She is a wonderful trainer and has been very generous to us with her time. Her input has been a valuable resource for us. She does, however, already have a job and responsibilities elsewhere. Quite often, non-profits must make due with what they have and we are so fortunate to have Gina as our head trainer (person in charge of training) - certified or not. While she has personally broke to ride and trained almost all of our lesson horses, she has also helped several of our rescue animals who were abused, beaten, neglected or simply abandoned and nearly starved to death. She has helped these animals regain a sense of peace with the world and the people in it. One example is one of our newcomers, a 17+ hand thoroughbred mare who is an ex-racehorse retrained for dressage (2nd level) and then left alone untouched in a field for several years. Those attempting to walk this horse from point A to point B were rarely successful. She had learned to rear and bolt. If left alone in the round pen, she would perform an intricate pattern over and over. She was very stressed and very dangerous. Sheryl was even kind enough to give us her input on what to do with this horse. With a plan in place, Gina went out into the trenches to work with this horse. She is now able to be calmly walked all over the property even among our other animals. The proof is in the puddin' as they say. In our most recent rescue we worked with Animal Control to save an neglected, abandoned and starved horse from being put down. You can read about him on our website (http://heavenlyhorsehaven.org/news.html) under "Ringo". You can also watch a video of his arrival at our facility. (

YouTube - Saving A Horse

) Please take a moment to visit our website to learn more. (http://heavenlyhorsehaven.org) Or give us a call and come see for yourself. You can find our contact info here: (http://heavenlyhorsehaven.org/contact.html)
Thank you so much for spending the time to read this. I hope everyone has a chance to verify what I've written.

Mike

[Patricia]

I'm sorry I can't ignore the email questioning what we are or not doing at Heavenly Horse Haven. As Mike mentioned it's a small world in the community of Anza. I am 60 years old and have just returned to horse riding after many years. I have been taking riding lessons from Gina to get my confidence back. I also discovered that years earlier I really wasn't taught how to understand the horse. Thanks to Gina I am now becoming more confident and truly connecting to not only the horses but to the other animals at the rescue facility. Needless to say, I too am now a volunteer for Heavenly Horse Haven. I sponsor 2 horses (Ace and Joe) and am currently locating shearers to come to Anza to shear the lamas. I work full time at another job so I'm not able to go to Heavenly Horse Haven as much as I would like but I do go down as often as I can (every 2 weeks) to donate time to the animals and to the facility. I can tell you the organization is non-profit and due to the costs of hay etc it is not an easy task. It is a huge job to take care of all the horses and other rescued animals along with the up keep of the grounds and buildings on the property. However, all the hardwork and money I contribute does not compare to what I receive in return from the animals and everyone involved with Heavenly Horse Haven. Come on down and visit us. We'd love to show you our home for rescued animals.