Retired horses' group sues donor's rep

NEW YORK (AP)

A noted charity that cares for retired racehorses sued a representative for its biggest benefactor on Thursday amid a feud over finances and the horses' well-being.

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The executors of the late philanthropist and horse owner Paul Mellon ''have engaged in a campaign of vilification'' of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, the foundation said in its defamation claim against one of the executors, lawyer Frederick ''Ted'' Terry.

Terry's assistant said he was out of his New York office Thursday.

Based in the racing hotspots of Lexington, Ky., and Saratoga Springs, N.Y., the foundation provides sanctuary for more than 1,000 thoroughbreds that can no longer race - saving them, it says, from probable slaughter. The horses live at various farms around the country, where some are prepared to be adopted as riding and companion horses, and at eight prisons, where inmates are trained to care for them.

Mellon, a banking heir, was an avid horseman, breeding champions including 1993 Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero. Mellon died in 1999, leaving a fortune estimated at about $1.4 billion.

A $7 million endowment from the Mellon estate provides about 12 percent of the thoroughbred foundation's annual budget.

The estate expressed concern last year about the horses' care and the foundation's management, hiring a veterinarian to examine some of the horses. The vet said many of those she examined were starving and neglected, and only 47 of the 63 horses assigned to one Oklahoma farm could be found because the rest had died - findings that spawned a front-page story in The New York Times last March. The foundation was struggling to pay farms to care for the horses and ran a $1.2 million deficit in 2009, the article said.

''We don't know if it was bad judgment, taking on too many horses or bad decisions made internally,'' Terry told the newspaper. ''Eventually, we're going to have to ask ourselves if we are throwing good money after bad.''

The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation's lawsuit says its leaders ''have acted at all times in the best interest of the TRF and the herd'' of horses. While the foundation did clear its horses out of two farms last year, the lawsuit says the Mellon estate's veterinarian had little or no experience with racehorses.

''The herd is absolutely fine,'' chairman John Moore said in a phone interview Thursday.

While some horses might look thin, he noted, they're often aged by equine standards, with some about 30 years old.

''Our business is the business of taking care of old, skinny horses,'' he said.

The relationship between the foundation and the Mellon estate deteriorated further as the months passed.

The estate's executors began insisting on control over its spending, dictating staffing decisions and ultimately trying to get the foundation to sign an agreement saying none of the estate's money would be used to pay loans, according to the lawsuit. After the foundation used the estate's money to secure a new bank loan in August, Terry told auditors and the New York attorney general's office that the Mellon endowment was being misused, the lawsuit said.

The foundation had consulted a law firm that said the loan arrangement was permissible, the lawsuit said. Terry's comments amount to slander and have caused the foundation trouble raising money, it said.

''We have a very loyal following, but they get shaken up'' by such news, Moore said Thursday. ''What we're doing now is clearing our name.''

The foundation still owes the bank about $450,000 but has resolved debts to some farms, he said.

The lawsuit seeks at least $400,000.