Kelsey Lefever of PA charged with 3 felonies

[frugalannie]

[QUOTE=Equilibrium;6085478]

But what I’m not wrapping my head around is this. Why when TB people seem to be doing more in general do you want people penalised so heavily in racing only. Of course things should be better checked into, but for cripe sakes slaughter is not an exclusive TB issue. Lots of sporthorse people sell on problems. How about banning them from competition. Why do we believe their excuses of “well I thought it was a good home.”

There seems to be an awful lot of this mentality around here lately. Why is it this way. I don’t see any other sport or breed trying to protect the horses as much as I do in racing.

Terri[/QUOTE]

Terri, I agree with your point, but the implementation is the difficult part. Racing TBs are all permanently and individually identifiable because of their tattoos. Therefore you can prove that horse A that just left the track is indeed the plain bay in the kill pen.
Some other registries brand, but I don’t think they have means to positively identify individuals. Yes, some horses are microchipped, but not most. So how do you prove that the plain bay over there really did come from the barn/ trainer/ owner you think he did?

Also, TBs have limited venues for racing, providing control points, so to speak. If trainers/ owners are found to transgress and are actually held accountable, their continued participation in the sport is at risk. There is no way that works with the broader horse population.

So having said, I do wish we could hold every horse owner accountable. Maybe we can come up with ways to do that. Better control at our border crossings would be a good start. On an Eventing forum thread on the subject, someone suggested that a substantial fee ($300-500) be charged for every horse crossing the border to Canada or Mexico. If the horse came back within a fixed time, the fee would be refunded. This would allow people to show, breed, race do whatever but would make transportation for slaughter less economically attractive.

Any thoughts?

[Chezzie]

wow. this story breaks my heart. i bought 3 ottbs from kelsey a few years ago, and always referred to them as “rescues” because they were all in such poor condition. i had no idea what i was really rescuing them from.

she always had SO many horses on her farm, i thought she was some kind of animal hoarder. i guess it was even worse than that…

[judybigredpony]

When Kelsey drove onto the track she had no Penn National License…Penn has a 3 visits per year limit for any visitor not Licenses…and its enforced since you sign in @ the Security controlled gate. They have your Drivers license/ID electronically filed.
How did she continually go thru that gate???..thats the question. We all know how she sold the horses.
Who was repeatedly letting her on the grounds? No amount of trainer sponsered pass sign ins after 3 visits…So there is more to this story…Also Every horse who leaves is signed out @ the gate w/ trainers Barn #, trainer name and Horses name…so yes there most certainly is a way to know who owned trained and what horse left…unless all of that was faked as well.

Penn has a alleged “zero” direct from track to slaughter policy. Not a rule a Policy as far as I can tell.

The really funny part is that she 1-upped Mark Bliss one of COTH’s most notorious Scumbag Dealers w/ mulitple jurisdiction legal issues…do a COTH search on Mark Bliss for some Wine n Cheese reading.

[mbj]

Lefever has been charged with three felonies and two misdemeanors by the state of Pennsylvania, including deceptive business practices and theft by deception, in what will certainly boil the national issue concerning legalizing horse slaughter in the States. Her preliminary hearing is set for February 6.

[mbj]

Lefever has been charged with three felonies and two misdemeanors by the state of Pennsylvania, including deceptive business practices and theft by deception, in what will certainly boil the national issue concerning legalizing horse slaughter in the States. Her preliminary hearing is set for February 6.

[flyngcolrz]

[QUOTE=Chezzie;6085677]
wow. this story breaks my heart. i bought 3 ottbs from kelsey a few years ago, and always referred to them as “rescues” because they were all in such poor condition. i had no idea what i was really rescuing them from.

she always had SO many horses on her farm, i thought she was some kind of animal hoarder. i guess it was even worse than that…[/QUOTE]

I went to look at a horse with a friend at her place about 2 years ago. She said she had at least 3 that we might be interested in to try, but when we got to the farm they were all hurt and skinny. We couldn’t even lunge or sit on any of them. There were a few dead small animals on the property, too. It was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had looking at horses… and we did a LOT of looking. It breaks my heart that this was going on for so long.

[Jumpin_Horses]

I hope there is a special place in hell for this b****

[Chezzie]

[QUOTE=flyngcolrz;6085811]
I went to look at a horse with a friend at her place about 2 years ago. She said she had at least 3 that we might be interested in to try, but when we got to the farm they were all hurt and skinny. We couldn’t even lunge or sit on any of them. There were a few dead small animals on the property, too. It was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had looking at horses… and we did a LOT of looking. It breaks my heart that this was going on for so long. [/QUOTE]

it was a terrible place to see…she offered me one of the horses for free, the when we arrived with the trailer, she said she wanted $750 for him because she’d “fed him a lot this week.” i knew it was a ploy to get money, but we paid her anyway, just to get the horse from her.

[flyngcolrz]

[QUOTE=Chezzie;6085885]
it was a terrible place to see…she offered me one of the horses for free, the when we arrived with the trailer, she said she wanted $750 for him because she’d “fed him a lot this week.” i knew it was a ploy to get money, but we paid her anyway, just to get the horse from her.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, she was definitely one of the most shady people I’ve ever encountered with the horses. I’m glad you rescued your guy, that’s one less sent to Canada. It’s stories like this that make me wish I could quit my day job and open a rescue. It’s that pesky money problem…

[danceronice]

I agree with Terri–the fact that it’s more easy to identify TBs doesn’t excuse holding them to unreasonable standards when it comes time to sell a horse on, when other horse owners (who still make up the bulk of horses auctioned and sold for slaughter) aren’t treated the same way. If anything TB owners are in more of a bind, as they’re damned if they continue to race a horse, damned if they sell without performing extensive background checks on everyone who makes an offer, and damned if they destroy perfectly-serviceable horses because they can’t be 100% sure if they sell it that it won’t come back and bite them six months or a year down the road. Note that there isn’t a hue and cry from the stock-horse world against the race owners, and that many of the show-world people who are ready to string up race owners not only look the other way when horses that need to ‘step down’ are unloaded to anyone who’ll take them (“He was a good show horse but can’t jump the height I need any more, sound for light work, please take him so I can buy my next show horse”). Or worse–how many of the owners involved in the horse-killing insurance scemes were banned from rated shows or turned out of barns? Heck, some trainers are still working. If held to the same standards many want applied to racing owners they shouldn’t be.

In this case, it sounds like she had a nice little system for getting herself cheap/free horses from owners who had no reason to doubt her and who probably were not in a position to spend days or weeks vetting every possible interested party (assuming there were more than her.) And they probably thought, rightly, it would be rather cold to just kill a horse once it was no longer racing (THAT would go over well in the press, if it became commonplace–“Racehorses used, destroyed, thrown away without attempts to find home…”)

I don’t think that you can impliment a fee system for horses leaving the country–it’s not illegal to ship horses to slaughter, and it creates even MORE work at the borders and expensive with paying and refunding. I doubt it would stand up to a chlallenge in court. Not to mention if show horses are soooo hard to track and identify them when they’re sent through auctions, how do they KNOW it’s the same load of warmblood yearlings going out of Canada that came in? One load of ranch horses looks basically like another.

[brightskyfarm]

[QUOTE=Equilibrium;6085478]
but I hope someone will get what I’m saying.

Terri[/QUOTE]

Oh you are absolutely right Terri. The reason TB;s are in the spotlight is that there IS a tracking system to these horses, and a complete record of all their (racing) owners/trainers. Its literally impossible for a tb to not have a traceable history and a paper trail of its existance.

[caffeinated]

If you don’t mind waiting a bit I can get you his number. You wouldn’t be the first to contact him about an old horse he raced, and he will probably love a nice update

He may have some listed now on mid-atlantic if you want to search… otherwise I. Can get a number tomorrow sometime

[Acertainsmile]

[QUOTE=flyngcolrz;6085811]
I went to look at a horse with a friend at her place about 2 years ago. She said she had at least 3 that we might be interested in to try, but when we got to the farm they were all hurt and skinny. We couldn’t even lunge or sit on any of them. There were a few dead small animals on the property, too. It was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had looking at horses… and we did a LOT of looking. It breaks my heart that this was going on for so long. [/QUOTE]

Did you call AC on her? I would have…

[thatguy160]

It’s a shame there’s no mention of the 150 horses she has placed in forever homes in recent years.

[retreadeventer]

If every single person who has posted a negative word, comment, epithet, or oprnion about this on Facebook and COTH were really, truly, bonafide “good homes” … then the problem of finding good homes for broken-down racehorses would be solved.

If every horse trainer at the track just stopped one race ahead of the last straw race and kept that tendon from bowing…or sesamoid from cracking…

If racetracks enforced backstretch security properly …

If fraud were more carefully watched at New Holland Sales and laws passed to examine and watch business transactions…if the town of New Holland outlawed sales in the parking lot … there are lots of ways to stop this, put a hurt on it, keep people from doing this.

There are many people whose faces we should spread around on the internet.

To have many good homes…that would solve everything.

Would that it were so.

[lifesabreeze]

[QUOTE=thatguy160;6086473]
It’s a shame there’s no mention of the 150 horses she has placed in forever homes in recent years.[/QUOTE]

I think you are misplacing the shame. Did you even read the whole article?

[thatguy160]

Yes and last I checked it’s all allegations, perhaps a nice story about you, doesn’t have to be true, should circulate the internet? Maybe we should all wait to see the results before we pass judgement.

[thatguy160]

Oh, and you are most certainly correct as 154 horses as opposed to 4 would have been way less shameful to ship to canada. Perhaps everyone on the market should adopt a rescue instead of buying their dream horse if we’re all so concerned about their futures

[lifesabreeze]

I know some of the people involved and trust what they have told me. There is a reason she has been charged.

[thatguy160]

As do I