Ray Paulick of the Paulick Report posted this today:
Yesterday we broke the news of Kelsey Lefever, a 24-year-old woman who has allegedly been misrepresenting her intentions of finding a new home for retired racehorses in Pennsylvania and taking them to kill-buyers instead.
and further
Earlier today, we reported Great Scott Farm fired Lefever from a position as a riding instructor and by all accounts was caught unaware of the charges against her until our report. There will certainly be more to come on this story, but we applaud the quick and decisive action taken by the owners of Great Scott Farm.
But all of this does raise the obvious question, what can we do to keep this sort of thing from happening in the future? We asked our audience yesterday both on Facebook and Twitter if they had any suggestions on how to prevent this type of alleged incident from happening.
If you are on Twitter and/or Facebook, please weigh in with your ideas. If you are on neither, you can go here and comment on Mr. Paulick’s original post with proposed solutions, and read what others are saying. He has included feedback from social networks there too.
Thank you Ray Paulick.
I am wondering if letters, such NK for “no kill” could be added to a Thoroughbred’s lip tattoo? Or would buyers for the slaughterhouses just ignore it, like they do everything else that is put into place. Since horse slaughter is such predatory business, what can be done to ensure your horse never ends up in the hands of a killer buyer?
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Image Source: http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?p=6085355
Tuesday's Horse 
I think that breeders should be required to apply for a License to breed. There should be a cap on how many horses can be foaled with both Thoroughbred and Quarterhorses especially. It is time to control the population and only the most responsible should be allowed breed. That should be decided by their record of how many horses they have bred, what happened to them after their racing days were over, and their record on the use of any type of drugs. It should be incredibly expensive to be Licensed and that money should go to caring for the horses after their careers are over. The more cost prohibitive it is to even start would take a lot of these people away.
Just my .02…
Elle
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I agree Elle.
Or set up a lottery of sorts for breeding rights per year. You put up the money, you get to breed. But like you mentioned, regulated.
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The only way to deter this type of thing is to hit them where it hurts…THE WALLET. Day passes at the track should be limited weekly or monthly before it is required to have a trainers card for entrance. That right there would prevent people like LeFever to ever freely enter a track to grab these horses up. I think a TC @ Philly is something like $600. Sadly slaughter is needed. Too many unwanted horses. Rather than focusing solely on the elimination of slaughter in and of itself we should stay focused on making sure horses who had a potential home be saved. How this happens, I have no clue where to start. Too many deceitful people. Too many liars. Too many greedy “horseman” out there who just – don’t – care.
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The horses didn’t get here by themselves. You have to start with that. Why all the overbreeding? Because there is no skill; no integrity. How many times have I heard these guys (and some gals) say, I have to breed 100 horses to get one good one. Huh? Can you imagine if the rest of us had that sort of fail rate at what we do? And what do they mean by a “good one” anyway? A horse that wins a lot of prize money and can then make them more in the shed.
At the end of the day, if people didn’t eat horse meat there would be no horse slaughter. Everyone raves (including me) about the evils of horse slaughter, but the ones sitting down and dining on their flesh are never criticized or blamed. It is high time for that to change too.
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Well you can’t sit here and judge people for eating horse eat. To each their own. What about the dogs and cats they commonly eat abroad? Why not get up in arms over that? If the issue at hand is the human consumption of horse meat than every animal deserves to be in the spotlight, not just the horse because we Americans have a romanticized relationship with it. Get what I mean?
Reformation in our breeding practices is absolutely needed but again we would need to hit them where it hurts. How do we even begin to regulate a MUTLI BILLION dollar industry?
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Slaughter is NOT needed…….accountability is!
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Accountability, yes. Accountability via years of hard and cooperative work it will take to make these breeders/trainers/owners become responsible for these horses after the races. Until then, slaughter is completely and utterly necessary.
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Slaughter is never necessary. I cannot believe what I am reading here. Animals all over the Earth are brutally slaughtered for someone’s dinner. In China, they slaughter dogs and cats by boiling them alive! They do the same thing in Korea, when a breed goes out of ‘fashion’ they take it to a Market. The dogs and cats are in cages and are all happy as they are waiting for their owners to come and claim them. They often skin them alive for their fur. In Norway, they hang Basenjis (a rare breed of barkless dog, and I have one) because when they hang the dogs their ‘hackles’ rise and they like the look for a coat!
The Basenji is an endangered species and mine is 13 years old. That dog is the ONLY animal I ever paid for.
Your argument is called the ‘Spheres of Justice’ argument and it is utterly fallacious.
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AMEN tiggy98….there is no reason for slaughter, The world is a terrible place thanks to all the rotten humans who have no soul…..
And fine Jennifer S you can harp on the fact that it will take years to remedy the problem but really it shouldn’t take years as the very people/organizations who send these hapless creatures to slaughter have all the money in the world to prevent it.
Think about it.
It is the rescue people who, without money and out of the goodness of their heart, that make the difference….money and over breeding is at the root of the problem but sadly none of these people have a soul beyond themselves and their gold-lined pockets.
Anyone who says that slaughter is a necessary evil is so wrongfully informed. The fact that it is there is the problem, not a solution……
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So glad you agree. I was stunned when I saw that and could not suspend my disbelief. Sad, just sad.
Elle
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:) Agreed …..
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I think they should be freeze marked with No Kill on the hip. NK is good enough as they never read the tattoos and they remove the microchips when they start cutting. NK on the hip would have to be literally carved out (as often happens with the Wild Horses). Freeze Marking or Freeze Branding, people use different terms, is a great way to protect the horses but so many people don’t want a ‘mark’ on their horses, which is just insane to me.
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It is a predatory business which nothing will stop except ending horse slaughter. All sorts of branded horses go to slaughter, tragically.
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Ending horse slaughter does nothing for these unwanted/unhomed animals. In fact it makes the situation worse. This has already been proven when the US no longer funded our plants with USDA inspectors. And so the animals were shipped 24+ hours across the border to face FAR worse fates than here in the US. Again, rather than focusing on what currently is an inevitable, less make more pragmatic ventures. Get the inspectors back in US plants. Demand better shipping protocol. Etc.
Slaughter is the aftermath. We need to focus on what causes the need for it and begin regulation THERE; Enter TB racing industry, QH/Arab breeding futurities and the alike.
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Maybe if people had to pay a huge fee to send horses to slaughter? I wish I had the answer. I pray there is ultimate justice for this evil woman.
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Thank you for the update!!
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