Kill Pen Scammers are Preying on Horse Lovers

Crystal Kraft first saw Nacho, a sturdy golden chestnut Halfinger with a flaxen mane, on Fountain Hill Horses Facebook page. The post stated that the Haflinger, a breed known for its laid-back, people-pleasing temperament, would be sent to a Mexican slaughterhouse if no one paid the $2,500 “bail.” Anyone who paid could buy him out of that grisly destiny. 

Kraft, who runs a small chicken farm in Richland County, Montana, sent the money on the last day. And it might have worked out fine, as it has with other horses she has purchased after having only seen them online. But Nacho was coming to her via a vast network of greedy horse traders who prey on good-hearted people who want to give these equines a better life—and the sellers who oftentimes think they are sending their companions to loving new homes. 

A couple of days after they sent the money, Kraft and her husband were surprised to hear frantic banging on their door. The transporters who picked up Nacho told them the horse was in such bad shape when they got him that they rushed to Montana from the facility in Arkansas as fast as they could in fear the horse would go down in the trailer and not be able to get up. Nacho looked defeated, his head hanging low, old pressure sores on his bony hips, body propped against the side of the trailer to stay upright. “We were heartbroken and devastated,” says Kraft, who bought the horse for her daughters, who were 11 and 14 at the time. “The girls saw him come off and were bawling.”

They managed to get the horse out of the trailer. He quickly went down and didn’t get up for 12 hours. The family medicated him and checked to see if his legs could still move. Kraft’s farrier—a specialist in equine hoof care—came out a few days later.