Race horses perish in fire

CHICAGO – More than 30 horses died in a stable fire in suburban Chicago over the weekend, with distraught owners of the animals arriving Sunday to lay flowers at the site, a fire department official said.

The fire Saturday occurred 50 miles northwest of Chicago at Valley View Acres, a boarding facility that also breeds and trains thoroughbreds and show-jumping horses, and offers riding lessons to children.

As firefighters arrived before midnight Saturday, the stable’s owners were running around the burning complex looking for ways to lead horses to safety as the two-story structure collapsed, Crystal Lake Fire Rescue Chief Paul Deraedt said in a phone interview.

“They were frantic,” he said about the stable’s owners, Tyson and Amber Bauman. “But nothing could have survived the conditions inside. … They are devastated.”

TV footage of the scene Sunday morning showed blackened remains of the stable piled against a white fence and a damaged horse trailer, with firefighters still spraying water on smoldering wreckage.

One woman crying and bearing flowers said she’d owned her horse for 30 years. Firefighters tried to determine where her horse died and laid the flowers for her in the rubble near it, Deraedt said.

“Talking to these people … they were very close to their horses,” he said.

The Baumans were at an Illinois Hunter Jumper Association awards banquet Saturday and returned home after the blaze began, The Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake reported. Two of their children were at home but weren’t injured.

Deraedt said five of 37 horses thought to have been in the stable when the fire began survived and are in good condition.

Deraedt said Sunday the cause of the fire was unknown.