EKY horses likely at a kill pen in Tennessee. Time is running out | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- About 40 wild horses from Kentucky face possible slaughter in Tennessee pen.
- Horses allegedly bypassed required Coggins testing before crossing state lines.
- Kentucky's stray-hold laws offer minimal protection; legislative action delayed.
A large group of wild horses from Breathitt County are likely at a horse dealer’s farm in Tennessee waiting to be sold either to new homes, or if not, to a slaughterhouse in Mexico or Canada.
Jason Sexton of Sexton’s Horse and Mule Company in Sneedville, Tenn., posted a Facebook video on Sunday, Aug. 17 saying about 40 horses seen eating hay had come off “a strip job in Kentucky.”
“They’ve been on the news,” Sexton says in the video. “People want to save them. You can save them because we’re going to video them tomorrow. Give everybody a chance to buy them ... everybody’s been asking me about them, right here they are.”
When reached by phone Monday, Sexton declined to comment further. In the video he shows no proof the horses came from Kentucky.
This is apparently standard procedure for kill pens. Because horse slaughter is illegal in the United States, kill pens sell horses to people who buy them by the pound to take them to slaughterhouses over the U.S. border. Or they try to get humane nonprofits or regular horse lovers to buy them, sometimes for an inflated price.
Five years ago, Sexton posted another Facebook message confirming his business is a kill pen.
“This is a kill pen,” the post said. “The majority of the horses that are posted are headed to slaughter. We know little to nothing about them, but what we do know is said in the videos. If one is not headed to slaughter, we say so. If they are, they are given a deadline. All animals are sold as is, no refunds, and no guarantees.”
Shauneece Wade, head of the Appalachian Horse Project, which has been trying to save the Breathitt horses, criticized the horses’ plight.
“I hate that whole kill-pen situation because it feels like extortion to me,” she said “If you don’t pay for these horses, then they’re going to slaughter, and it’s your fault.”
Sexton said the horses would be tested for Coggins on Monday morning. A Coggins test is a blood test to identify if a horse is a carrier of Equine Infectious Anemia, a deadly, viral disease found in horses.
A negative Coggins test is required for all travel between states and at most equine facilities. But they’re also used as identifying documents for horses.
So how did these horses make it across state lines without Coggins tests? It’s not clear. It’s also not guaranteed these are the same horses from Breathitt.
The Breathitt horses have lived for many years on abandoned mine lands outside Jackson. The populations have gotten so big that they sometimes wander down off the mountain in search of food, becoming a nuisance and a danger to motorists.
The Breathitt Fiscal Court voted earlier this year to get rid of the herd. That opens up a complicated process in Kentucky known as “stray-hold” where horses can be collected and held for 15 days to make sure they are not owned by anyone else.
However, there’s nothing to stop people from ignoring the stray hold process, and nothing to stop them from selling to slaughterhouses. The ASPCA estimates that about 20,000 horses from the U.S. are sent to their deaths in Mexico and Canada every year.
Breathitt County Judge Executive Jeffrey Noble and Jamie Holbrook, the county’s animal control officer, have ignored my calls for weeks. But on Monday, they agreed to talk to my colleague Taylor Six.
They told her it wasn’t economically feasible for anyone to take horses to Canada and Mexico because it often cost more than the poundage of horses they could sell for. They also told her the horses had become nuisances, and the people of Breathitt County wanted them gone.
Two members of Congress from Illinois are trying to ban transportation of U.S. horses to foreign slaughterhouses.
Here in Kentucky, the entire process regarding wild horses needs to be overhauled by the General Assembly, but they don’t meet until January.
For now, a variety of horse rescue operations are trying to decide what to do next, but time is running out.
Reporter Taylor Six contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 18, 2025 at 11:30 AM.
