'The Mane Event' to benefit Baiting Hollow horse rescue

Baiting Hollow Farm Horse Rescue is holding an inaugural fundraiser on Friday to help maintain its 28-horse rescue and continue saving horses from slaughter across the country.

"The Mane Event" will run from 6-9 p.m. The $60 cost will include dinner, and attendees can partake in the silent auction and raffles. There will be live music by local country and rock band Southbound, and country-western attire is optional.

The rescue, at Baiting Hollow Farm Vineyard, is home to former racehorses whose lineages trace back to legendary horses like Secretariat, Man ‘O War and War Admiral.

After developing a fear of the gate and refusing to race, Playboy, a thoroughbred racehorse, was heading to a slaughter pen in 2011 before Baiting Hollow rescue took him in, according to co-founder Sharon Rubin Levine.

Sharon Rubin Levine, co-founder of the rescue, said people don’t realize how expensive it is to rescue horses and provide for them, so the fundraiser will be a huge help.

“We need donations to rescue horses and provide them sanctuary, care and train them, so we can get them into loving and permanent homes,” said Rubin Levine, of Commack.

Rubin Levine said they just rescued a pony they later named Charlotte who was put in a kill pen after no one had bid on the pony at an auction in New Jersey.

“Most people don’t realize that 100,000 horses or more a year go to slaughter,” she said. “We’re hoping that the fundraiser will help us rescue even more horses and continue our work training and caring for the 28 horses we have.”

For more information on the rescue, to register for the fundraising event or donate, visit http://bhfhorserescue.org/mane-event-may-31-2013.