9 years later, it’s happening yet again. Here is the latest version of the 52 Free Thoroughbreds “COVID Edition” as of June 2020.
FREE HORSES!!!! 52 thoroughbred horses need homes. Will go to Sugarcreek this Sat. for slaughter. Gentleman died due to COVID-19 and his son wants nothing to do with them. Most broodmares are broke and some are in foal weanling, yearlings, 2 yrs. and 3 yrs. old most are gelded. FREE and papered. Friend of the deceased is trying to find homes.(732) 618 8243 Fairhill, Md.
Here is our original post from August 2011:
It’s not uncommon for Facebook posts to get picked up and to spread like wildfire in a matter of hours. One such example is a post about 52 horses that need homes:
52 thoroughbred horses need homes. Will go to Sugarcreek this Sat. for slaughter. Gentleman died, his son wants nothing to do with them. Most broodmares are broke and some are in foal, yearlings, 2 yrs and 3 yrs old most are gelded. FREE and papered. Friend of the deceased is trying to find homes. 440-463-4288 Barnesville. Please copy and paste.
The status update above has been hitting Facebook hard, especially amongst the horse community. But can you really believe everything you see online? Yes and no.
This particular update originally hit Facebook in January of 2011. That’s right, in August 2011 at the time of this writing (8 months later), it’s still circulating around the web. While it appears as though the horses were likely at one time available and needing homes, they were reportedly placed a long time ago. The status update above is now being reposted with claims that the horses are available in various locations, even as far away as Australia (the original location was reportedly Ohio). We received this comment from one of our Facebook connections:
“We got the first post back in January of 2011. Called the number and it was an answering machine stating that all horses were placed, never really found out what happened or if there were any horses.” (- Kymber Miller)
While we can’t say for sure that the horses did or did not exist (update: we have heard from several confirmed sources that the horses did legitimately need to be placed in January) we did call the number ourselves. It is now directing to a voicemail with no greeting. We’re pretty certain that you won’t find any free horses by calling them up at this point.
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