I have heard multiple breeders say the mares arrive to them after getting pregnant very thin, bad feet, can’t catch them without a chute, won’t stand for a farrier, etc. Most people seem able to eventually get their weight to be reasonable and the feet addressed, and they’re pregnant for… 9-10 months with the breeder so you have time to have them look better at foaling than when they arrive. It’s the responsibility of the person with care and custody of the horse to actually care for them, so I am not saying EMS is responsible for their condition 9 months after they sent it, but I also would believe that some of these mares arrived looking like hell.
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I think that many people have said recip mares from there are in poor condition, but I think Kate has her own mares so that is irrelevant.
I question doing ICSI on the donor mares. As anyone who has been through or been close to anyone who has been through fertility treatment, it’s a process that takes its toll on the body. That kind of treatment done to a horse in poor physical condition is questionable to me.
In one of these threads, there is a heartbreaking video of a horse Kate leased as a recip being returned very thin and actively foundering. That is horrific.
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Depends on the situation.
some places have a rate for the mare before foaling which goes up once the foal is born.
So you could consider that a boarding fee for the foal.
Kate doesn’t use EMS mares, she free leases mares from various people. If I leased her one I would be taking it back yesterday.
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Ok. If EMS is sketchy, their own recipient mares underweight and client horses going home underweight after a month at the clinic, then Kate found her perfect repro vet that was borderline abusive.
Though let me check. Are these skinny feral mares the recipient mares that EMS leases out or do people send their nice recipient mares to EMS and they come back in terrible shape?
Kate was sourcing her own recipient mares through scrounging free leases. She explained that in one of the threads.
But it sounds like she found a crap repro vet that wouldn’t see her crap horse management as a red flag.
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Did anyone else notice how tight the halter was, in the first photo (that Kate Shearer put up) of the skinny foal ? The halter marks are still visible in the horrifying photo taken by the person who picked up the foal.
I think someone left that halter on for quite a long time. 
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I’m very glad Kate is being named and shamed here and people are posting screenshots from her FB to show the deplorable condition of her horses. I feel terrible for the poor skinny baby that has started all of this, but I honestly think some of the blame is also on the buyer here. Was no research done before sending $25k and months of board money to someone for a horse that you weren’t going to see before picking it up at weaning?! It’s not like Kate is hiding her crazy or the condition of her horses. So many good breeders are struggling to sell foals and taking excellent care of their stock, and people will somehow still send money to someone like this. I hope in the future more buyers do their research, come across this thread, and never buy from someone like this again.
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See the marks on the nose in the photo above?
See the halter here? (upper left corner photo)
I think this can be enlarged to see better how tight the halter is. Click on photo here;
https://forum.chronofhorse.com/uploads/default/original/3X/a/4/a44652ef9c65f9f30d3452b474253b41b34e0093.jpeg
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That makes sense if it’s your mare you’re sending somewhere to foal out; I’ve just never heard of it for a foal on the ground that’s purchased before weaning.
There’s always been a code of silence with some of the breeders that specialize in hard to get frozen and speaking out against them can draw a lot of hate. In addition, sometimes mare owners just want the horse off their feed bill and don’t do a lot of checking, or rely on the breeder to tell them the horse is in good shape. It’s times like this when one person goes public and then other people come out of the woodwork with similar experiences.
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If I was a respectable breeder with no connection to Kate (those 2 things correlate) I certainly wouldn’t get into a slanging match about her online. Not worth the drama, she seems the kind of person it smears you even to know. On the other hand, it’s totally appropriate for ripped off clients to go public with their personal horror stories with her. Often it takes a while for an abusive situation many people know about to get enough momentum it goes public.
Thanks for posting those screenshots showing Kate used EMS lease recipient mares. I could have sworn that on the other thread where she was chit chatting about her business model, she said she did not. But much of what she says shifts depending on context. It makes sense she uses at least some EMS lease mares because then she doesn’t need to feed them year round. And apparently EMS is not a stickler for horse care.
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Kate Shearer
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Please everyone stop messaging about buying horses. Everyone has thrown their accusations around. I’m the one that called the sheriff and many other things have been discovered today which will be fully disclosed! But no. Nothing is for sale. There will be an auction though next month as I have realized I just cannot agree to trust another person to board or care for mine. The old ladies will stay for life. Other than that nothing is available no matter what you send me until a group auction next month. I hate myself for working so hard so I can afford my amazing furkids at the same time as trusting with the wrong hired help.
If this is true, it is fantastic news. It also suggests that her horses have been seized and now must go through an auction process. Otherwise why wouldn’t she be happy to sell them off to people?
It’s also possible that there are Horsemens lien debts against her requiring they be sold at auction. It doesn’t mean necessarily shipped to a meat sale. But I think it’s a mechanism to make sure the horses sell at market value to real buyers, as opposed to $1 apiece to extended family who will return them. It’s a funny one, because you actually get the highest prices from private sales if everything looks good and while an auction is a good look at market value, it could also turn out that market value is much less than a private buyer might pay.
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I really doubt her horses have been seized. It sounds like more she may have realized she’s hit a limit and is selling off a lot of stock.
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I have a hard time believing that Kate/Kathryn Shearer was the one that called the sheriff.
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Is the EMS referred to on this thread this facility? https://www.equmed.com/reproductive-services/icsi
Yes, but why a group auction rather than just a fire sale to anyone she could get cash from? That would likely be higher prices privately. Nobody would go the group auction route except under constraints. She could probably sell off all her yearlings and weanlings for a couple thousand a head to people who like the type, whereas honestly as a batch in group auction you’re looking at $200 a head.
Horse prices at auctions, even low end auctions, have been really high recently. She’s going to get more than $200 a head. If they have papers, are some sort of WB, and many people know there could realistically be bidding wars. At least that’s what she’s hoping.
AND they all sell at once, no messing around with dozens of people asking, no shows, different leave dates, etc.
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Does “group auction” mean going to commercial.auction? Or is it a private farm sale with a bidding component?
Edited to add: Kate has clarified on FB that she plans to “hire a company” and run the auction on her farm or whatever. Not sending them to commercial auction. I still think this sounds like bailiffs. She’s claiming her monthly costs are $12 to $15k. She could well be declaring bankruptcy on her breeding entity and liquidating her assets that way. Or maybe she needs a month to fatten them up enough.
Or maybe it’s a lie and she will just move them.
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