Horses’ manes at a Philly school were mysteriously cut: ‘I was just flabbergasted’

The Philadelphia School District is “deeply concerned” about an incident last week at Roxborough’s Walter B. Saul High School in which the manes of several horses at the school were cut by an unknown perpetrator.

Saul, an agriculture-focused school, has for more than 30 years been known for its horses, which often can be seen grazing in a pasture along Henry Avenue. They have become a fixture in the neighborhood, and this incident was the first of its kind in the decades the animals have been there, a school district spokesperson said.

Trespassing on the school’s farm “is not only illegal, but also dangerous,” Christina Clark, a communications officer for the school district, said in a statement.

Jane Arbasak, Saul’s farm manager, noticed the issue last Friday, when she stopped by the school’s field to speak with two young girls who were looking at the horses. And that’s when she saw it.

“One of them looked like it was butchered, and the other one looked like somebody literally took a pair of scissors and just cut straight across,” Arbasak told The Inquirer. “I was just flabbergasted.”

Online, the prevailing theory is that someone clipped the horses’ manes to sell the hair to make hair extensions. But, Arbasak said, that doesn’t make a ton of sense, especially in the cases of mare Ohana and gelding Striker. On those horses, she said, the forelocks — the part of the mane that hangs down on the horse’s face — were cut. That’s only about three inches of hair, Arbasak said, which isn’t worth much in terms of hair extensions.

“It just floored me,” she said. “Why they would cut the forelock, I have no clue.”

Farm staff, she added, rarely cuts hair on the horses, and almost never goes after their forelocks, manes, or tails. Their last trim was in early June, when Arbasak and her staff trimmed the horses’ bridlepaths, an area down the back of the animals’ necks, so their halters fit better. Occasionally, they trim the horses’ tails because they can grow long enough to drag on the ground.

Clark said cutting a horse’s mane is a bad idea because the mane helps protect the horse from the sun, and aids in keeping flies off. The hair recently cut from the horses will take months to grow back.

When she discovered the unauthorized cut, Arbasak said, she briefly considered moving the horses off the pasture where neighborhood folks can see and interact with them.

“I’ll tell you what, I was mad,” she said. “It’s like, really, you’re going to cut my manes off? I don’t have to have them out here, because they’re not for the neighborhood — they’re for the kids.”

Ultimately, though, Arbasak realized that the best thing for the horses is to allow them to hang out in the pasture. But, she said, the school is working on installing new fencing that is specifically designed for horses — a change that she said was in the works before the mysterious haircuts. Arbasak is also considering installing an electric wire inside the new fencing to keep the horses back from it.

With those changes, she said, people would still be able to see and interact with the horses, but neither animals nor humans would be able to easily get through the fence. The plan is to begin installation later this summer before Saul’s students head back to school.

An equally big issue to the unauthorized trim, though, is how dangerous it is to approach an animal like a horse without knowledge or supervision. Not only is it dangerous in the moment — the horses, Arbasak said, can weigh upwards of 1,400 pounds and run quickly while making little noise — but it’s also not good for a horse living in a learning environment like Saul, where dozens of kids interact with the animals on a daily basis. Such interactions could inadvertently teach them behaviors that will ultimately impact students.

“The biggest point is that every time somebody interacts with a horse, or a cow or a sheep, that you’re teaching them a behavior,” she said. “It’s not about you, it’s about the kids.”