One year has passed since Clintons Cigar, a 15-year-old standardbred stallion, was killed at Olds College and the pain of the loss still lingers in the school’s equine science program.
One year has passed since Clintons Cigar, a 15-year-old standardbred stallion, was killed at Olds College and the pain of the loss still lingers in the school’s equine science program.
"We still miss Clintons Cigar and it will be a long time before we don’t miss him," said Dr. Marion Anderson, the program’s coordinator. "He was a big part of this program and he had such character and everybody loved him."
Police and college officials believe one or more persons opened a number of the program's horse pens sometime between 10 p.m. on Sept. 8 and 7:45 a.m. on Sept. 9, 2012, releasing as many as seven animals, including five stallions, into a feed alley. The alley's end gates were closed, locking the horses into the alley.
Cigar, who was lent to the college for breeding purposes, was found dead from a kick to his head on the morning of Sept. 9 and another stallion was found with injuries to its legs. Stallions will fight each other to establish dominance and many believe the horses were deliberately put together to fight.
The horse’s death was a heavy blow to the school and attracted widespread media attention.
While most of the school’s new crop of students this year may not be aware of Cigar’s death, Anderson said people still ask her about what happened to this day.
"You do occasionally run across somebody, not necessarily in the program, but in the general public that remembers it and I still have people asking me if anything has ever been determined about who did that incident."
In the wake of Cigar’s death, the program’s instructors and students have become "much more conscious of security" in the areas where horses are boarded at the college, Anderson said.
Stallion pens are always locked and two security cameras, paid for from money the college offered as compensation to the man who loaned the horse to the school, Allan Neurauter of High River, were installed in the pens in the spring.
Anderson also said she and other people at the school are much more vigilant about keeping the general public away from the horse pens.
"I think that that’s probably the biggest change is that now you recognize that nothing and no one is safe," she said. "Everyone is vulnerable and so you have to take extra steps to secure the well-being of the animals."
But the death of a donated horse has not deterred others from lending their animals to the program.
Neurauter, who received an honourary degree from the college in June, brought another stallion named Bunkmeister to the college in March to replace Cigar for breeding.
And the program was recently lent another stallion, Anderson said.
Police did reopen the investigation into Cigar’s death in April and questioned a Mountain View County man about the incident after receiving an anonymous tip. After interviewing the man, however, police believed they did not have any grounds to charge him.
Const. S.D. Bereza of the Olds RCMP said the investigation into Cigar’s death is closed since police have not received any new information on the matter for months.
He added it’s doubtful police will receive any other leads to pursue in the case since many of the people who knew about the incident are likely no longer at the college.
"We’re not expecting to hear anything unless something out of the ordinary comes up," he said.
But, Bereza added, the case could be reopened if someone brings new information forward.
"If anybody knows anything, we’re definitely willing to listen."
Anderson said she isn’t optimistic the people responsible for Cigar’s death will ever be caught.
"I would think that somebody who had done an incident like that and realized the impact that it had and the amount of attention that it got is not going to put themselves out there," she said.
[email protected]
CHECK US OUT ON FACEBOOK!
