I am sure that everyone has seen the article on BH about concerns raised in shuttling horses, due to this incident. I know that I’d be giving it a hell of alot of thought!
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Apparently the farm is closing and probably should. So much of this makes no sense. I understand that criminals can be stupid but wait until these cretins understand that the meat they stole and got about $1000 for (guesstimate) could have been ransomed live on the hoof for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It’s unbelievable.
Why should it probably close? The slaughter makes no sense to me either.
Sad that these stallions so senselessly lost their lives.
Sad also that Haras Barlovento will be closing.
Does appear from the BH article that slaughter for meat was the objectives 
If I had to guess I think putting the farm out of business like they just announced was the real motivation for the killings. Hopefully they are looking into who will benefit from them no longer being competition. So heartbreaking for everyone involved.
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It’s interesting that the Instagram post by Haras Barlovento owner Boris Schwartzman doesn’t say that the stallions were killed for meat. Which still makes me think that the slaughter occurred for another reason.
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@LaurieB not disagreeing but certainly some sort of disconnect, misinterpretation or mistruth as the BH article (as does the PR article) which quotes from Schwartzman’s Instagram post certainly implies slaughter for meat; that a truck was parked on the wide road accessible to the stallions in the event they needed to be moved for vet care.
https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-rac…vento-to-close
[URL=“https://www.paulickreport.com/news/bloodstock/they-took-away-our-dreams-haras-barlovento-in-peru-to-cease-breeding-operations-after-stallion-deaths/”]https://www.paulickreport.com/news/bloodstock/they-took-away-our-dreams-haras-barlovento-in-peru-to-cease-breeding-operations-after-stallion-deaths/
From the PR report
It is believed that the horses were killed for their meat by a group of eight intruders.
I would agree that choosing these 4 horses among all the horses that must have been residing at Hara Barlovento is very strange. 8 people? That’s a lot…
I just re-read the BH piece- it says that the killers were there for 11 hours- butchering the stallions.
I cannot even imagine how those who went in the next morning felt. You can’t un-see or un-feel that. No wonder they are getting out.
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Sounds like vendetta or revenge…or an offer they should not have refused. The meat thing in Fl is linked to ritual and some Caribbean cultural beliefs, certainly easier targets that would yield more if it’s just for meat.
Peru is a different ethnic mix entirely and the Cartels merciless when crossed. Course nobody is going to fess up to seeing anything.
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And the farm apparently didn’t own any of these horses although they were probably insured. The thing is, were the horses insured for this? Collectively we are probably talking seven figures.
Even if the insurance is honored, I can imagine this putting a damper on South American shuttling unless the farm is willing to put up a personal guarantee.
This sure sounds like a horrific thing organized crime would do. Maybe they even got the idea from The Godfather.
So bizarre.
According to one article (Bloodhorse, I believe) the horses were confined and there was a nice access road that backed up to the barn, making things more convenient. It also sounds like there was some sort of targeting of the owner and his animals. Also, I wonder if the presence of testosterone in the stallions would have been something that was desirable. ???
If I were a stallion owner, I definitely would think twice–or thrice–about shuttling to South America.
Stallion owners will definitely have to consider their options very carefully going forward. After this it will probably be nearly impossible to obtain insurance on shuttle stallions–depending on where they are going–and I doubt many owners will send their stallions out of the country without it.
One thing that strikes me as odd every time I read about this is the lack of farm security. There are dozens of Thoroughbred farms in and around Lexington, KY. Aside from human personnel, they all have fences and electric gates. It would be impossible to drive into any of them unobserved at any time–much less in the middle of the night.
I would think the need for tight security would be higher in Peru than here. So I’m shocked at how lax it was.
(Also they had eleven uninterrupted hours to do the deed??? How is that even possible? There isn’t a single farm in central KY where the high dollar bloodstock doesn’t have multiple people checking on it at least every 5-6 hours if not more often.)
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Bizarre to say the least. Maybe the slaughter for meat was what the crime was made to look like but in reality something deeper going on.
If I was thinking of shuttling a stallion, I would still consider Australia but IMO, not many other destinations south of the equator.
Whether this specific incident was really for meat (doubtful IMO) or retaliation or reminder of some nefarious sort I hope the truth eventually comes out although I doubt that will happen. 11 hours makes me think insiders involved at some level… definitely a culture we are unfamiliar with 
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Not sure we need to lump all of SA together any more then So.Fl. reflects all of USA. And don’t forget there was a watchman/groom/guard on the property to keep watch who was killed. That’s deliberate targeting and not at all what’s been going on in Fl.
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I believe all South American countries are third world countries. I hesitate to vacation in third world countries, much less participate in a business operation. Australia is not a third world country.
I’m not forgetting the watchman. Just indicating that he clearly wasn’t enough security under the circumstances. Unfortunately this is not the first shuttle stallion who’s been killed in Peru.
Fwiw, my husband travelled all over the world for business. When he was in SA, he travelled with guards, always. Not that all SA countries are the same, but different safety measures were taken on that continent than on the others.
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Everything that you have cited here is part of the reason that I felt they should be closed down. Based on the description of the facilities, this was amateur hour. A single watchman apparently responsible for the horses for 11 or 12 hours? That is just ridiculous especially when the value of these stallions and the fact that farm didn’t own them is factored in. You have to wonder what Sequel and the insurance company were told about security. I also have to assume they were coming back in the next week or so to get ready for the Northern Hemisphere season. So stallions that have been there for months happened to get slaughtered in their barn right before they are ready to come back to the States? And nobody notices anything until the deed has been done.
Surveillance cameras are dirt cheap and a minor colic unattended can become life threatening in just an hour or two. I just don’t buy that these were hungry peasants who happened to gravitate to the most expensive high profile animals in the barn.
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I travel too.for work and personally. But it sounds like this farm was at least woefully inadequate to host shuttle stallions if not in on it.
@findeight I’ve traveled in South America, too. But generally speaking it’s not the random tourists who are at risk. There is a thriving business in kidnapping high-level executives and holding them for ransom–because their corporations will pay to get them back. My husband worked with someone whose wife was kidnapped in Brazil. She was released a month later–after several weeks of negotiations–when the ransom money was paid.
Fwiw, I very much doubt that it’s a coincidence that American stallions were targeted in this attack.
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That is why I am having a hard time believing that this is random. It was as though the act was designed to humiliate and destroy the ownership of this farm–and it did.
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