ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 10, 1996 TAG: 9608120044
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTINA NUCKOLS STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
Bob Steele hopes to revive the former Hunting Hills Stables in Roanoke County by starting a horseback riding program for children with disabilities and life-threatening illnesses.
He says he has experience working with animals and children. He's got the court records to prove it.
Steele was sued in 1982 when a cougar he owned attacked a 9-year-old boy in Pittsburgh. The case was settled before it went to trial.
He has a criminal record in Florida that includes 14 counts of animal neglect, one count of having improper locks on his cat cages and one count of transporting a 280-pound lion in a convertible. The U.S. Department of Agriculture confiscated 13 large cats - including cougars, bobcats, a tiger and a lion named Leon - when federal investigators concluded in 1991 that the animals were malnourished because they were being fed a diet consisting primarily of chicken necks and backs.
Although he was banned from exhibiting exotic cats, Steele continued staging "monkey derbies" in which monkeys are strapped to miniature horses and raced around a track. Steele has only one monkey now, and he's looking for another project.
Steele, a former automobile bodywork specialist, discovered he could make a living exhibiting exotic animals more than 25 years ago when he purchased his first big cat, a cougar named Tom-Tom. He says he's always made his animals available to children with special medical needs. He and a panther were occasional visitors to a school for the blind in South Carolina.
The seed for his latest project began during his monkey derby days, when he offered pony rides between shows. At a fair in Waco, Texas, he saw a 23-year-old paraplegic woman watching the horses and invited her to take a ride. With help, she was able to sit astride a pony for the first time in her life.
"It got under my skin," said Steele, who has contacted Carilion Health System and the Make A Wish Foundation about starting a horseback riding program for disabled and terminally ill children.
He says he realizes the program would not be a moneymaker, but he hopes it will create publicity for the stables, bringing in customers for boarding, lessons, breeding and rodeos.
An animal rights group, however, questions Steele's qualifications for working with animals or children. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which Steele dismisses as a group of "humane-iacs," has a file on him "a mile high," according to PETA media assistant Yona Gregory. It details his run-in with the USDA and includes complaints from spectators who witnessed the monkey derbies.
The most serious incident in PETA's file on Steele involves Tom-Tom, the 130-pound cougar he bought as a present for one of his five ex-wives.
Steele was exhibiting the cougar in 1982 as part of an automobile show in Pittsburgh. He was leading the cat to a display area on a leash when 9-year-old James Seals, racing toward a video game machine, collided with the cougar.
"The little boy ran up and threw his hands up, and the cougar attacked him, grabbed him by the head and throat," said Bill McDaniel, an off-duty deputy sheriff who witnessed the incident.
James Brush, another eyewitness at the show, said he ran up and kicked the cougar, but it kept its grip on the boy's neck.
"Blood was thumping out of him," Brush said.
McDaniel then drew his gun, but he said he couldn't get a shot because Steele threw himself in front of the cat. Steele tried to pry the animal's jaws open but finally backed away. At that point, another off-duty officer, Sgt. Arthur Banze of the Pittsburgh Police Department, shot and killed the cougar.
James Seals suffered neck and facial wounds, including a damaged artery that leads to the brain, according to reports in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Steele now says the incident never would have happened if security guards had done a better job controlling the crowds. He also says the boy's parents should not have let the child run around unsupervised. He was sued by the Seals family, and the case was settled out of court.
Steele continued exhibiting cats for eight more years, using them to promote automobile dealerships and charging people to have their pictures made with them at flea markets and fairs around the country. But in 1990, USDA investigators paid a visit to his home in Lake County, Fla., and hauled away 13 cats. Steele was charged and convicted the next year on 14 counts of animal neglect, which included one cat not taken during the original USDA search.
Rich Overton, an animal care specialist with the USDA at the time, says the conviction was based on documentary photographs and veterinary medical records indicating that the animals were skinny and had eye problems, broken tails and ear mites.
Steele says he fed his cats whole horse and cow carcasses, not just chicken parts, and treated the animals better than those used in circuses. He believes government officials had the animals butchered so the meat could be sold.
"My African lion got served on restaurant dinner tables," he said.
The USDA denied that that animals were killed, but Steele publicly threatened government officials involved in the confiscation, which occurred while he was at a monkey derby show in New York.
"You can believe that if I'd have been there ... I'd be here today on a different charge," he said during testimony, which was quoted in the Orlando Sentinel, "because they'd have been carrying away some people in boxes."
Overton said Steele "threatened me several times, and supposedly put a voodoo curse on me."
Although Steele's sentence included a ban on exhibiting exotic cats, the judge allowed him to continue his monkey derbies, a business he had started in 1989.
Within a year after his conviction, however, he was prohibited from exhibiting any type of wild animal in the state, according to Officer Barry Cook of the Florida Commission on Game and Fresh Water Fish. Steele sold his property to a minister, gathered up his monkeys and horses and moved out.
Neighbors say they weren't sad to see him go.
"When that preacher man came over here asking about buying Bob Steele's house, I gave Bob Steele a high recommendation at that time because I wanted him out of here," said next-door neighbor James Averill.
Another neighbor, Ken Sprayberry, says Steele "caused a ruckus in the neighborhood," although he admits missing the big cats.
"It was kind of like waking up every morning in Africa," he said.
Steele has been traveling around the country since 1992 and now lives in West Virginia near Potts Mountain. His monkey derby has been retired because Steele currently has only a Japanese snow macaque named Kyoto.
Steele brought Kyoto to the Roanoke County stable last week to brush up on his act. He says it takes at least a month to train a monkey to ride.
"In most cases, you have to sedate them to get the chain on," he said, "and then after you get the chain on, you've got them under control."
Kyoto willingly mounts the horse at Steele's command, although the animal gnaws at its paws and the chain securing it to the saddle.
Steele's veterinarian says Steele's horses are in good condition, and local people who have visited the stables say they had a good experience.
"I thought he was very careful with the children," said Ruth Walton, who took her grandchildren to the stable. "He took precautions. We enjoyed it, and I would take them back."
Local therapeutic riding officials are being cautious about Steele's new program, however. They say no license is required to start a program like theirs, but they require their instructors to be accredited through the North American Riding Handicapped Association. They also screen participants, because some conditions could be exacerbated by riding a horse.
Andre Namenek of the Roanoke Valley Therapeutic Riding Program says his organization has a waiting list of children wanting to participate, and with the closure of a therapeutic riding program in Lynchburg several months ago, the demand is increasing.
Steele already has several customers lined up for lessons. It's unclear, however, whether Steele will be successful in attracting clients to start a therapeutic program because Carilion officials have not agreed to refer patients to the stable.
"I think somebody needs to question his equine experience - putting monkeys on ponies and running them around - whether that's of any value or not," Overton said.
Steele says he won't be rebuffed by his detractors.
"As far as knowing what I'm doing, I'm smart enough to learn what I don't know," he said. "At least I think I am."
LENGTH: Long : 149 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. Bob Steele's macaque rides a miniatureby CNBhorse at stables off U.S. 220 in Roanoke County. color.