A Jasper County Sheriff's Deputy said he planned to send a report to the Jasper County Prosecutors office regarding a sick horse found near the road on Jackpine Road northwest of Carthage, but he couldn't say whether a crime had been committed.

Jasper County Sheriff's Cpl. Roy Masters was called to investigate the gray mare which was lying on its side just inside a fence on the south side of Forrest Farms between County Road 170 and County Road 180 along Jackpine Road.

The owner of the horse, Mike Forrest, Joplin, said the horse and its colt were perfectly healthy when he checked on them on Thursday and he suspected someone poisoned it.

"I ended up euthanizing it," Forrest said. "I'm not a veterinarian or a doctor, but a horse doesn't go from perfectly healthy to deathly ill in 24 hours."

Neighbors and bystanders said the mare had been lying on its side and convulsing for several hours before Masters arrived on scene.

A neighbor, Linda Haggard, who said she has raised horses, said she thought this mare was underweight and starving and probably would have to be killed to put it out of its misery.

"She should have another 200 pounds on her," Haggard said. "There's no doubt in my mind that this horse is too far gone to be saved. She has a colt, however, that is salvageable as long as someone gets it away from here and gets it proper nutrition."

Forrest said, in a telephone interview Saturday with The Carthage Press, that neither the deputy nor anyone else told him the horse was underweight.

Forrest said he checks his animals daily and the horse was fine the day before it was found lying on its side. Forrest said he lost a cow that died suddenly in the same field about a week before.
"No one else would say that horse was underweight," Forrest said. "Anyone can say anything at any time, but that don't make it true."

The 15-acre field, surrounded by a metal pipe fence, where the mare was lying contained approximately 40 animals, including several horses and cows and at least two bison.
Haggard and Donna McMillan, a bystander from Jasper, expressed concern about the other animals in the field, saying cows and horses needed at least one acre per head to live comfortably.

The two, along with other neighbors and bystanders spoke as they stood on the side of Jackpine Road watching the struggling horse.

They said they were disappointed that it took about three hours for a sheriff's officer to respond to their calls for assistance for this horse.

"We were dealing with calls about people," Masters said. "We have to deal with calls about people first before we deal with calls regarding animals. Our animal control officer was tied up in court all day today or he would have been here. He will try to get here as soon as possible."

Masters said he contacted Forrest and a veterinarian, but Forrest said he would take care of the matter without the vet responding to the farm.

Forrest told The Press he planned to increase security at that farm to try to find out if someone was poisoning his animals.