“I looked in their hay. There was nothing there, but their water was all sudsy, like fizzling. I dumped it all out, washed it out and told fair board member, but they wouldn’t believe me. They wouldn’t do anything about it,” Mock said.
Fair manager Dan Martin said, “None of the horses were sick,” and declined further comment until investigators confirm the substance in the bucket.
Mock said he is angry that someone would want to hurt his horse.
“It’s terrible, horrible for anybody to do that for no reason at all. I don’t want this to happen again tonight (Thursday),” he said. “We had to stay up last night and watch them. I don’t want to have to do that the rest of the week.”
His horse, named Skamper, was not hurt, but Brittany Ballinger’s horse, Bella, drank some of the water in the bucket before she could dump it out.
“When we looked in her mouth, her gums were all red and inflamed,” Ballinger said. “It must have been from the water where it irritated her.”
Butler County Fair adviser and horse owner Heather Nigg was not at the barn Wednesday night, but rushed to the fair after hearing the news. She said her horse, Abby, is fine, but planned to take her home Thursday. She said she hopes whoever did this won’t do it again.
“Sad it has to be like this,” Nigg said. “It’s unfortunate there are mean people out there that do these things.”
Mock also planned to take his horse home Thursday. He and many horse owners now fear for their animals’ safety.
“It’s scary. It makes us feel unsafe here with our horses,” said Ballinger.
The man accused of tainting the horse’s drinking water with a white substance would face a criminal mischief charge if caught, according to authorities, which is a first-degree misdemeanor. Detectives were at the 4-H barns Wednesday night and again early Thursday morning investigating the crime.
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