Georgia -- The Augusta Chronicle carried a story on April 15, 2001 by Sylvia Cooper about saving a former racehorse from the slaughterhouse:

Ever think you'd like to own a really fine horse but couldn't afford one?

That's what Martinez resident Erika Widener thought until Helen C's Boy stepped off the trailer from New York 11 days ago.

When the 11-year-old registered thoroughbred racehorse set foot on Georgia soil, Mrs. Widener said, she was amazed by his beauty and poise.

"He came off the trailer, and he wasn't afraid of anything," she said.

Mrs. Widener, a member of Equine Advocates Inc., a horse protection organization opposed to horse slaughter, adopted the horse from New York Horse Rescue after finding the agency on the Equine Advocates Web site.

She wanted to save one of the beautiful animals from the slaughterhouse, she said.

"Right now, they've stepped up production of the Canadian slaughterhouses because of the hoof-and-mouth disease and mad cow disease in Europe," she said. "The Europeans are not eating beef or sheep, so they've turned to horse meat. So now more than ever we need to adopt these horses and get them out of harm's way."

Mrs. Widener e-mailed New York Horse Rescue founder and owner Mona Kanciper and told her she was looking for another horse.

"She told me about this horse.

He is an 11-year-old, very calm, levelheaded. He's been trained by professionals all his life. Nothing would surprise him anymore. He would make an excellent riding horse."

Mrs. Widener sent a donation to the organization and paid about $600 to have him shipped.

Helen C's Boy has famous racehorses Northern Dancer and Nashua in his pedigree, she said. A sore back leg ended his racing career.

Mrs. Kanciper said New York Horse Rescue is primarily a thoroughbred charity, which means most of the horses she takes in are racehorses.

"And I really just do this because I want to make sure the horses get good homes," she said. "I think these horses deserve good homes. I've taken in probably 160 horses now. I've adopted out 120."

New York Horse Rescue has placed horses across the country, she said, including in Colorado, Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Georgia and places in between.

"I really just do it for the happy endings," she said.

Mrs. Kanciper's husband is an equine veterinarian who practiced on the racetrack for more than 30 years. New York Horse Rescue employs a professional jockey, and he and Mrs. Kanciper find out about horses in need of rescue before anyone else, she said.

New York Horse Rescue isn't the only place a person can acquire a nice horse whose racing days are over.

Many Aiken racehorses are retired to a better life, and some are accessible to average folks.

Horse trainer Ron Stevens, of Stevens Race Stable in Aiken, said if the horses that can't race anymore have no value as breeding animals, he does his best to find them good homes.

"I've given away an awful lot of horses . . ." Mr. Stevens said. "And we've probably given away a dozen of them here in (the) Aiken area. We sell a few of them very reasonably for hunters and jumpers and riding horses in the woods. And eventually we'll have one that's no good for anything and somebody who just wants a pet."

Racehorses are accustomed to being handled by veterinarians, groomers, jockeys and trainers. They've been around noisy crowds, cameras, starting gates and tractors, so nothing really frightens them, Mrs. Widener said.

"But when these horses are no longer useful to these people, they just send them off to the meat-packing plants," she said. "When they no longer make money, they go off to auctions. Some of them end up as pleasure horses. Unfortunately, some of them don't."

She said she will keep Helen C's Boy, whom she plans to give a Southern name, with her other three horses on 21 acres she leases in Columbia County.

"This is my first love, my true love - horses," she said. "This is a dream come true for me. And if I can help save one more horse, it would make a world of difference to me."