Crosspost from Off Topic: Byrd Rareshide’s Retirement

[wanderlust]

@SusanO

I am making a lot of ASSumptions here because I am in Alabama but most horses if they are in good condition at the end of the summer are not going to be a “2” by December or January.

You don’t know what you are talking about. The lush summer grass in the mid-atlantic goes dormant and basically stops growing in Oct. A herd will graze that to zero and will precipitously drop weight over the course of a week or so depending on the size of the pasture/herd/supplemental hay.

You would be shocked at how fast it happens, even when they come in at night and are getting supplemental hay/grain but their lush daytime grass is gone. Especially a senior. Had it happen to one of mine at a boarding facility, there was still short grass and they were waiting on their round bales to be delivered, but a few of the older ones dropped condition crazy fast.

[Christa_P]

Several years ago I picked up a 4 year old OTTB on Christmas Eve that had left the track in racing condition about 2 weeks before. When I got her she was well on her way to emaciated. Two weeks from racing fit to a maybe 2.5-3 and dropping quick, it doesn’t take long especially with older horses.

[Rackonteur]

I’m glad to know that journalists still have some kind of ethical standards.

No, I am not being sarcastic.

[OverandOnward]

@Mander

Does anyone know how difficult it is to obtain 501c3 status?
The owners were paying to keep their horses there - they weren’t charity cases.

Is there a chance they weren’t a 501c3? Maybe just a not-for-profit? Or just speaking as if they were? Sometimes people assume that something that promotes itself as a non-profit and/or for charitable purposes must be a 501c3. But they don’t have to be.

If anyone can explain the details of their tax status and financials, I’d be interested … just curiosity though. Another learning experience.

[DMK]

Like wanderlust said, the grass stops growing, horses keep eating. And if VA was anything like GA, we had a nasty fall drought, which means there really wasn’t much growth going into winter. My pastures were shot by December and thanks to the drought there was no point in overseeing in fall so they really look like crap now. For the first time in over a decade I’ve had to lock off 2 and keep one as a sacrifice pasture.

And all of that means there wasn’t a good fescue crop of hay this year. Most places around here are out of square bales and the round bales are not great. For years my young retiree has done fine on fescue and ration balance in the winter. I’ve been eyeing that winter fluff suspiciously for a week wondering if he’s lost weight (he has a huge belly, so it’s deceptive). He had a heavy weight blanket on for 36hours in the rain and when I pulled it off, sure enough I could see ribs with the flattened coat. Sigh… So he’s getting senior feed on top of the balancer and I’m probably going to have to supplement the fescue, which is not making me happy, but my happiness over his health is not the deal we made when I decided to own horses.

Which makes me wonder if this asshole has a program where she mostly relies on pasture and the occasional round bale in the winter to get by, and in the past maybe most got by but some horses did very poorly on this program because that’s not meeting their dietary needs (my guy absolutely loses weight over there winter but since he wears a grazing muscle in summer he just gets “not obese” in winter). And this year between the lack of pasture, lack of available round bales and increasing cost of hay in general, everybody got short shrift.

It’s absolutely not an excuse for the condition of these horses, but rather an explanation of how a sociopathic personality can justify things. A normal human being would have said that our board is x and it includes a, b and c level of care. That may not work for every horse, in which case we have a different setup for those horses and it will cost Y. And this year probably all of those borders should have gotten a call saying that former cost is out the door now that the price of everything is gone up. But again, that’s what normal people do when they are trying to take care of the animals in their care. Clearly this does not apply to her.

[AAHunterGal]

@DMK

Which makes me wonder if this asshole has a program where she mostly relies on pasture and the occasional round bale in the winter to get by, and in the past maybe most got by but some horses did very poorly on this program because that’s not meeting their dietary needs (my guy absolutely loses weight over there winter but since he wears a grazing muscle in summer he just gets “not obese” in winter). And this year between the lack of pasture, lack of available round bales and increasing cost of hay in general, everybody got short shrift.

From what I understand, there were no round bales or hay/forage of any kind in the fields, which were completely grazed bare.

[HipNo34]

I’ve known at least one organization billing itself as such and claiming that their paperwork was “in process” or this or that when called out on it

You can look it up online. [Tax Exempt Organization Search via the IRS site]. I did quickly, just searching by name [“Byrd’s Retirement Foundation”] and state [Virginia] in ‘all databases’ and nothing came up. I may’ve done something wrong because it’s been a while since I’ve stalked a suspected scammer-type. ETA - I realized that wasn’t quite what you were asking so, but yeah, perhaps she was just skating on an implication and taking advantage of an assumption.

[wanderlust]

@DMK

Like wanderlust said, the grass stops growing, horses keep eating. And if VA was anything like GA, we had a nasty fall drought, which means there really wasn’t much growth going into winter. My pastures were shot by December and thanks to the drought there was no point in overseeing in fall so they really look like crap now.

Good point. Sometimes the summers get very dry in August/Sept, and drought means the grass is relatively useless even that early in the year in the VA/MD area.

[Railbird]

EIN: 88-3368816

It was difficult to look up by name. I had to just search Byrd and go through them.

[DMK]

Yes, obviously. As I said, THIS year there isn’t much fescue available, so when people who are committed to actually taking care of their animals have trouble sourcing hay, the lowlifes really fail in a big way.

[Mersidoats]

I guess another question to ask is what can be done to educate ACOs? I know that one rescue in WV has done a lot of work to educate their local and county ACOs on acceptable body conditions and food supply for horses. It’s been a huge effort on their part reaching out to the departments and offering trainings, but it has paid off. The officers are now acting on cases that would have languished in years past, as they have a better understanding of what constitutes adequate horse care and health.

Do we as horse people need to start cultivating these relationships?

[Trekkie]

There is an incredible equine rescue here in Virginia that does these kind of outreach programs with ACOs. I think perhaps if we continue to support and volunteer at these excellent reputable rescues maybe they can extend more of these opportunities to local regions.

Hope's Legacy Equine Rescue

[trubandloki]

@Mersidoats

I guess another question to ask is what can be done to educate ACOs? I know that one rescue in WV has done a lot of work to educate their local and county ACOs on acceptable body conditions and food supply for horses. It’s been a huge effort on their part reaching out to the departments and offering trainings, but it has paid off. The officers are now acting on cases that would have languished in years past, as they have a better understanding of what constitutes adequate horse care and health.

Do we as horse people need to start cultivating these relationships?

This and we (general) have to get past the theory that if there is food on the property that is good enough, even if it is clear that the animals are not being given that food.

This is not a case of one hard keeper, under vet care, not thriving that can be explained that way when it is shown just how crazy much feed they are getting. But for some reason animal control sometimes goes with - there is food there - as a reason that the skeleton horses are OK.

[McGurk]

It is a 501c3 according to GuideStar -

No assets or receipts and no 990N because it’s too new.

No mission statement either, with can be problematic.

I think it’s entirely possible the 501c3 was set up and she was unable to secure donations. And perhaps the classes and such the Foundation sponsored, Byrd actually paid for out of pocket as a way to advertise the Foundation.

Again, 28,000 501c3s lose their certification per year. If you scroll through GuideStar, you’ll lots of them with no assets, no receipts and no 990s. Lots of people will tell you setting up a 501c3 is a great thing for tax purposes, no one mentions the key aspects are fundraising and accounting.

[trubandloki]

@McGurk

No mission statement either, with can be problematic.

Disclaimer, all I know about this subject I have learned here on COTH.

I thought you had to have a mission statement to get your 501c3?

[Trekkie]

Question–if she had her Foundation as a 501c3 would she be able to claim her clients board income as “donations” so she did not have to have them taxed as personal income? In that case I would imagine her “donations” were significant, if there were at least 17 retirement horses there from board paying clients.

[McGurk]

Well, you should have one when you form the 501c3, but the 990N doesn’t require it. The 990 long form does, but that’s for orgs with gross receipts in excess of $50K

[McGurk]

Not enough information for me to speculate.

I will say there isn’t much advantage to Foundation to have the board payments funneled through the Foundation. It’s essentially a boarding business that barely breaks even, so no one would be worried about paying taxes on the profit. (Tax is on profit, not income.)

Even if you were somehow magically making money boarding horses (like, by not feeding them) the easiest thing to do is to spend the profit on a capital improvements, and voila!, no profit that year.

The real reason to form the 501c3 is to encourage people donate and be able to write off the donation.

[Texarkana]

@Mersidoats

I guess another question to ask is what can be done to educate ACOs?

I totally agree, but it is so tough. Horses and livestock are such a small part of the animal population today, especially in suburban areas. While you can train officers to recognize more than shelter, water, food… how can you train them to spot the charlatans?

I used to live next door to the former captain of the mounted police force and (then) current supervisor of all equine animal control reports. Seems like he would be a great candidate to supervise the ACOs, right? Wrong.

His horses were severely neglected. None of them ever had their feet done and they curled. One older mare was a BCS of 1.5-2 most of the year until she eventually collapsed and died. Another two were metabolic and obese and in chronic severe pain from laminitis. But they had hay (low quality), water (except when we had a deep freeze), and shelter… so it’s not even like I could get another agency involved. And what agency would challenge one of their own?

Same in this case: the perpetrator is a respected judge, instructor, and competitor who is capable of caring for horses correctly. How can we expect an ACO to see through her ruse?

It’s frustrating.

[cristalle]

@Railbird, I can’t click ‘like’ - this is just too heartbreaking,sickening and infuriating. Those poor horses. The one on the ground, he looks like he has given up hope.
And anyone who defends her in any way shows their lack of empathy and caring - and exactly what kind of people they are. “witch hunt” ? “not that bad”?? My god. WTF is wrong with people.