Thirty horses were slaughtered by arson last week at a racetrack in New York State, leaving their owners with only questions and sorrow.
The New York Times reports that 32-year-old Boyd H. Fenton of Athens, Pennsylvania, has been arrested on counts of arson, burglary, criminal mischief, and assault.
While Fenton remains in custody at the Tioga County Correctional Facility, investigators have yet to determine what sparked the early Thursday morning fire that destroyed the stable.
“It’s soul-destroying,” Kayla Morris, who along with her husband Lee lost 12 horses in the blaze, said. “It’s taken everything from us.”
At around 6:15 a.m. on Thursday, Edgar Clarke and his wife, Cheri, arrived at the track in Nichols, just across the state line from Pennsylvania, to find a blaze roaring there.
“Those horses meant everything to us,” said Edgar Clarke, a Standardbred horse trainer.
They made an effort to rescue the critters.
Using a fire extinguisher, Edgar Clarke, 68, attempted to enter the barn that was on fire and housed the horses.
“I couldn’t get in the barn. It was totally engulfed,” he said. His efforts resulted in second-degree burns on his face.
Cheri Clarke tried another entrance, with no success.
“We took one step in and had to go back out again, and we couldn’t — I heard them screaming. I heard the horses kicking and screaming,” she said. “We couldn’t do anything to help them.”
“How can I go from having a barn full of horses one minute to not even having a snap the next minute.” – Cheri Clarke, who lost 6 horses in the Tioga Downs fire.
Absolutely devastating.
— Jessica Hallett (@JHallettPhoto) November 12, 2023
Kayla Morris rushed to the barn in pajamas when she heard about the fire.
“I tried to get in the barn, but I just couldn’t because the fire was just so hot, and I just screamed and screamed,” she said.
“I sat for four hours and watched it burn and just hoped — hoped — that one of them would come out,” she said.
Edgar Clarke said he was left bereft.
“The last few days are the first time in my entire life I’ve not had a horse,” he said, adding that he has not been back to Tioga Downs — one of seven harness racing tracks in the state — since the fire.
“I don’t want to see what happened,” he said.
Kayla Morris misses one particular horse, Better Call Saul, a lot.
“He was the absolute love of my life,” she said, according to HarnessLink. “He was cheeky, funny, and always hungry. He just wanted to be loved.”
According to HarnessLink, a memorial for the deceased horses will be built at the track’s backstretch at Tioga Downs.
