Police Bust ‘Urban Cowboy’ Who Mistreated Horses

Police over the weekend busted an “urban cowboy’s” private “range,” shutting down a horse farm he had set up in the middle of very urban Ramat Gan – on public land, to boot. The owner of the farm will be charged with misuse of public property and cruelty to animals.

A total of 31 horses and six donkeys were removed from the farm. Many of them were in poor physical shape, police said. According to veterinarians who examined the animals, several “looked like skeletons” due to a lack of food, others appeared to have been beaten, and others were sick. The animals were taken to an Agriculture Ministry facility for recovery, where it will be decided what is to be done with them.

A spokesperson for the city said that the individual responsible for the farm had a long history of taking over public land for private use, and that the city intended to collect from him the cost of closing down the farm and evacuating the animals, which amounted to many hundreds of thousands of shekels.