Louisville Magazine

APR 2017

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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116 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 4.17 Cheak and a few of her horsewomen friends want to fill that gap with a non- profit they've planned called the Equine Sanctuary Center of Kentucky, the primary mission being to foster horses confiscated by Animal Control agencies or Humane Societies across Kentucky. e center would tend to any medical problems and keep the horses as long as necessary. Should a judge decide to return the animals to their original owner, the center would oblige. If a judge severed ownership rights, the center would likely hand the horses off to other organizations like Old Friends, New Vo- cations or the Kentucky Equine Humane Center, so that they could work on finding the animals a permanent placement. e concept is still in its infancy. Cheak, who is an accomplished chef in Danville by day, says her motivation is simple — a lifelong love of horses. e inspiration hit after caring for some of the 43 horses at the center of a head- line-grabbing abuse and neglect case. Last June, a Breeders' Cup-winning trainer named Maria Borrell was charged with 43 counts of animal cruelty after investigators found 43 horses abandoned, starving and living in filth on a farm in Mercer County. (One of the horses in the case — Z Camelot — is American Pharoah's brother, and another was the son of 1997 Derby winner Silver Charm.) Maria Borrell's father, Charles Borrell, was arrested on the same charges and entered an Alford plea last October. Maria remains at large. ough many in the horse industry have clues about her whereabouts, animal-cruelty and -neglect charges for horses are misdemeanors, which means authorities cannot extradite her. If she stays out of Kentucky, she's safe. Cheak was among many volunteers who helped nurse some of the horses back to health. She still has countless "before" photos of oroughbreds with ribs pressing at the skin and bald patches from rain rot. (For ten years running, the Animal Legal Defense Fund has ranked Kentucky as the worst state for animal-protection laws, citing no felony A donkey named Jack will soon be up for adoption after recovering from neglect.

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