Horses with no home Young, middle-aged and old, the healthy, the starved and the crippled - all the horses are here for the same reason. “Hay is too expensive,” explains Carl Penner of Hamilton, who has brought a horse to the auction. “It costs a lot to keep them.” And so, people sell them - or try to. Horses are suffering as the economy falters, and not just in Montana. It's a nationwide problem, said Gene Greimann, a longtime Hardin veterinarian. “It's pretty clear we've got a situation,” he said. “And it's pretty critical.” Montana has seen a rash of horse neglect and abuse cases in recent months, most recently in the Bitterroot Valley, where two Georgia outfitters are accused of abandoning their pack horses, one of which nearly starved. In the Billings area, Greimann said, “people are turning horses loose on the Crow Reservation, and we have had several ranchers who have found stray horses starved, laying down and banging their head on the ground in misery.”....Picture that horse layin' on the ground and bangin' it's head in misery, and keep that picture in mind as you thank the "do gooders" in the animal rights industry and the gutless wonders in Congress for creating this situation.