Hello. My name is Sierra Lawrence, I am 22 years old, and my sister and I worked for Jean Marie Elledge. Back in 1995 through 1997. I live in Utah, I moved here back in 2001, and thus is why I had not heard what happened and about this case until just last year.
I saw and heard recently what happened to the poor animals that she had... and when I read and saw I was completely speechless. And now I feel this is when I must explain what I know about Jean and her animals, and how she treated them... I never realized what I was seeing, I was young, irrational, and I didn't fully understand the scale of it all.
This is what I know. I experienced...
I remember... There was little food, and when there was, it was poor quality. No shelter. Muddy ground. Solid hotwire fencing that horses ran through time and time again. There were babies everywhere, all the time. She basically ran a mill to pump out baby horses. They all stayed outside, all the time, in all weathers. Me and my sister were constantly being told to go and scrape the rain rot off of the horse's backs, brush them, clean them up. I remember horses having lice and nothing being done about it. We were also supposed to train the babies to they would be 'docile' enough to sell. And if they had problems, we weren't supposed to say anything. One horse in particular, a palomino mare named Cornflower, she would jerk back so hard if haltered she would break lead ropes. She never told the new owners about it when she sold the horse...
She also bred many saddlbred mixes, calling them as the registrars call them "National Show Horses", but never registering them as that. She would register them all as "half arabians".
She fed crappy food, if you could call the moldy hay and wet grain that... But getting back to the particulars...
A lot of the horses that are talked about in this case I knew personally... I met them when I began to work for Jean back in 1996. I knew their histories, their personalities, their likes and dislikes, their stories.
SEAS THE GOLDEN DAY (Deceased)... Ah the infamous Coco, as we all knew him as, was only a two year old when I met him. He was the most beautiful cremello stallion with a brilliant attitude. Jean was always breeding him because his cream based foals would bring in more money. He was little more than a mill breeding stallion. Although he was never severely emaciated when I worked there, during the winter he was always thin and ribby. He had a wonderful temperment and was my favorite.
IMPROMPTU DHF... Impromptu (Now called Summer) never had a foal while I was working at Jean's place. But Jean kept her in with Coco (SEAS THE GOLDEN DAY) at all times in hope for a palomino foal. He would often try to breed her many times in one day, biting her neck and back, leaving marks. But no foal ever came. Impromptu was much to tall but still she wanted that baby that could be sold for more money... She later on came to produce the foal you all know as Kokomo.
OLYMPIC SPIRIT (Presumed dead)... Gypsy, as we called her, was a bay mare. She produced a ton of buckskin foals out of Coco. SEASPIRIT was one of those foals.
LA ZHARA... Zara as we called her, is the mother to a horse I once owned that I got from Jean. He was a bay colt registered as ROHAN "Lightning". She was always pregnant as well.
Jean also had a lot of "accidental" babies. In particular I remember an unregistered chestnut mare whom I loved, named Canyon (an Arabian crossbreed), daughter of a mare called Sara (an Arabian), who had yet another foal by SEAS THE GOLDEN DAY "Coco" on accident, a palomino colt named Romeo. This baby was sold as a purebred unregistered saddlebred when, in fact, his mother, Canyon was an Arabian crossbreed.
>>>>>And a few horses that I didn't know the registered names of..
KITARO (May or may not be his registered name) (Presumed Deceased)- A 12 year old fleabitten grey arabian stallion. He was very often bred to mares to make grey foals. He was ALWAYS skinny, a rating 2 or less on the emaciation scale.
BINTEE (I think she is registered BINT EL BATAL) - A fleabitten grey Arabian mare with HORRID conformation. She was CONSTANTLY pregnant wth Kitaro foals.
SHARRY - Another grey Arabian mare always pregnant with Kitaro foals.
SARA (Deceased) - 19 year old Chestnut Arabian mare. This mare was so abused. She'd been beaten and jumped and ran and chased to the point she didn't care what you did to her. She was bred while VERY underweight at 19 years old. She had a palomino colt. Out of... SEAS THE GOLDEN DAY.
HALO (Deceased) - Halo was a colt that was beaten to death. Jean said she had shot Halo, but there was evidence of blunt force trauma.
>>>>>The cruelty doesn't end with the ones most people know about...These horses DIED while I was working there...
JACIMA (Deceased)- 15 year old chestnut Arabian mare. Jacima was 15 years old when I met her, and was skin and bones. She died that very winter, I think of starvation. She was literally ragged skin stretched over bones. I don't know what was done with her body.
TEDDY BEAR (Deceased) - A 6 year old Arabian stallion, later gelded. Teddy Bear was ribby when I started there. He was kept in a pen by himself in view of mares. He broke out time after time due to the fencing only being hotwire, and bred a few of the mares. He died about 8 months after I started working there. Jean said it was cancer though she never had any tests done and there appeared to be nothing wrong with him aside from emaciation. But I presume he too starved to death. She took his body into the woods and covered it with hay and just left it. Her dog, Zoi, brough bones from his body back into the pastures.
TORRIDAWN - Torridawn was a mare I remember, but have no info on.
SHORTY, 35 year old paint horse boarded at Ms. Elledge's. He came to the property a little thin, but over-all in good condition for his age. He went downhill in just 9 weeks from something like 900 to 700 lbs. Me and my sister found him struggling to get up. He could not and the ground was scarred from him struggling. We notified Jean and she called his owners acting all concerned. Owner came out and realized it was too late, she had him euthanized.
BAHIRA - Chestnut filly. She was given an injection of penicillin in the neck (Ms. Elledge gave all her own shots), went into anaphalactic shock and died later on that night. Bahira was SHARRY and KITARO's foal.
And there were a few more I can not remember.
---
In regards to..
Willow. All of Jean's buckskin colored foals when I was there were from breeding a mare called "Gypsy" (OLYMPIC SPIRIT), or the mare LA ZHARA, you all call her Hope now, to Coco (SEAS THE GOLDEN DAY). And every single one of them looked like Willow...
SEASPIRIT, another 'golden' money making baby bred out of OLYMPIC SPIRIT "Gypsy" and SEAS THE GOLDEN DAY "Coco"
GYPSY SEASHELL, was out of mare OLYMPIC SPIRIT "Gypsy" and SEAS THE GOLDEN DAY "Coco"... another of her 'golden' babies.
--
All-in-all she had over 50 horses living there at any given time in the years that I worked there. Many of whom I can't remember the names. And countless babies whom I don't remember the names to. It just makes me sick that I didn't actually see what was going on there at the time... I still have pictures of many of these horses...
The good thing of it all is that my sister and I had lost all contact with Jean since 1999... and it's come full circle now. Her stable, where she is manager, is now caring for the palomino colt that was rescued named Phoenix. And I must thank SAFE for all they have done.