An investigation was launched after the FEI was informed that Kocher had used an electric shock device on horses in multiple competitions. The FEI considers shocking a horse in any manner horse abuse. 

The FEI Tribunal has suspended U.S. Jumping athlete Andrew Kocher for 10 years and disqualified him from eight events between June 2018 and November 2019 for using electric spurs on horses. The athlete has also been fined approximately US$11,000 and ordered to pay costs of approximately US$8,255.

The FEI Legal Department notified the athlete on June 29, 2020, that an investigation had been opened following allegations about electric spur use reported to the independent Equestrian Community Integrity Unit (ECIU). It was alleged that Mr. Kocher had used electric spurs on a number of FEI registered and national horses in international and national events, and during training.

Following the investigation, the FEI formally opened disciplinary proceedings against Mr. Kocher in October 2020. He was provisionally suspended on October 28, 2020 pending a hearing before the FEI Tribunal, and this period will be credited against the full suspension, meaning that the athlete is ineligible through to October 27, 2030.

During the suspension the athlete is barred from participating in or attending, in any capacity, including as a spectator, any competition or event that is authorized or organized by the FEI or any National Federation.

The sanctions also include disqualification of all results obtained at events for which the FEI Tribunal was provided with photographic evidence establishing the athlete's use of electric spurs. The eight events are: CSI4* Hickstead (GBR), 21-24 June 2018; CSI3* Lexington (USA), 14-18 May 2019; CSI2* Lexington (USA), 22-26 May 2019); CSI5* Calgary (CAN), 5-9 June 2019; CSI5* Calgary (CAN), 27-39 June 2019; CSI3* Traverse City (USA), 7-11 August 2019; CSI3*-W Columbus (USA), 2-6 October 2019; and CSI4*-W Toronto (CAN), 5-9 November 2019.

These sanctions form the operative part of the FEI Tribunal decision. The full reasoned decision will be published here in due course. Parties can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) within 21 days of receipt of the full decision.

Read more here. 

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The sheriff's office released a brief statement Wednesday, which read “On the afternoon of April 13, 2021, Xavier McGrapth who is a suspect in an active investigation involving Equine in Bourbon County came into the Bourbon Sheriff's Office for an interview. Upon conclusion of the interview McGrapth was arrested on an active warrant that was tied to the same case. The Bourbon County Sheriff's Office and the Bourbon County Attorney's Office are working closely together to bring this case to a close. At this time, all horses involved have been removed from the Farm and have been relocated to facilities to best suit the care they need.”

Earlier, McGrapth was charged with 13 counts of animal cruelty in the second degree. It appeared that he had been starving some of the horses under his care, and that at least two of them died.

“I'm relieved in that we've made some progress with Xavier turning himself in,” said Amanda Scarsella, who had sent six horses to McGrapth. “With the news that he has formally been charged and taken into custody, I'm hopeful we can move forward and see some justice served. This is only the beginning. What needs to happen is we all need to use this as a teaching point and as a learning point to change laws. We don't want to see this happen again.”

Five of the horses she had with McGrapth have returned to Scarsella's upstate New York farm. She fears that a sixth horse, a broodmare named Fresh Face (Uncle Mo), may be one of the two dead horses, neither of which have been identified.

“This has been bittersweet,” she said. “We are so glad that they are alive and are home, but it's been pretty gutting to see them this way. My colts are sleeping a monstrous amount of time because they are just so wreak and so tired.”

McGrapth had been advertising his services on Facebook under the names of McGrapth Breaking and Training and Whisper Creek Thoroughbreds. He posted that he was available to break and train young horses and board broodmares. McGrapth had the horses on a section of a farm he leased from longtime Central Kentucky horsemen Steve Johnson. Johnson has said that he did not know that McGrapth was mistreating any of his horses.

The case came to the attention of the Bourbon County Sheriff's office when Alyssa Evans, a client of McGrapth's, came to the farm to check on one of her horses. While there, she saw two dead horses laying in a paddock and alerted the sheriff's office. The sheriff's office began its investigation shortly after receiving Evans' call and first inspected the farm on March 19. The sheriff's office then called on a local veterinarian, Dr. Zach Logan, who inspected 23 horses and reported that 11 were malnourished or severely malnourished and that two others were dead.

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In a statement released Tuesday, the Sheriff's office said that the investigation was ongoing and that a suspect had been identified and a criminal complaint had been issued. McGrapth was not named in the statement.

“On the Afternoon of March 19, 2021, the Bourbon County Sheriff's Office received a complaint of Equine Welfare at a farm on Brentsville Road here in Bourbon County,” said the press release from the Bourbon County Sheriff's Office. “Deputies responded to the scene and immediately started an investigation into the welfare of the equine present. The Bourbon County Sheriff's Office has received support from The Ky Department of Agriculture who assisted us with locating and contacting owners and started the process of relocating horses to a safe environment for care and treatment. They are also assisting with the investigation and have sent an investigator to work closely with us throughout this case. As of now all the horses have been identified and the process of relocating them to various locations is coming to an end. The Bourbon County Sheriff's Office has identified a suspect in the case and a criminal complaint has been issued. This investigation is still ongoing, and all authorities involved are actively working together to bring this to a close.”

According to a police report obtained by the TDN, the sheriff's office received a tip from horse owner Alyssa Evans, who had given McGrapth a mare to care for, that there were two dead horses in a paddock on the property. Upon investigating, they discovered the two dead horses and found additional horses that were malnourished. Veterinarian Dr. Zach Logan was brought in to evaluate 23 horses and he advised that 11 were malnourished or severely malnourished and that two dead horses likely starved to death. The two dead horses have yet to be identified.

“There's no doubt in my mind that he was starving them,” Evans said of McGrapth. “Never when I went out there did I see him feeding anybody.”

According to the police report, “(Evans) advised that she went into the barn to locate her horse and located another horse in the stall that hers was supposed to be (in). The horse in that stall was very malnourished and also had sores on its head and body. Deputies also were shown the two dead horses, one of which appeared to (be) recent and one that appeared to have been dead longer.”

The report says that police called in a veterinarian, Dr. Zach Logan, to assess the horses. “He looked at the 23 horses that were at the location, he advised that 11 were malnourished or severely malnourished, and the two that had died were likely to have been starved to death.”

Diana Winkelspecht, who had received a call from one of McGrapth's owners asking her to retrieve his horse, was among the first to arrive. She said she would eventually take in a number of ailing horses that had been on the property.

“We couldn't walk away from the situation,” she said. “After seeing this I had to see that something was done and that someone was held accountable for it. It looked like these horses had been abandoned. It didn't look like anybody had been on the part of the farm Xavier was leasing for a while. Weeks if not longer. There were two dead horses in the paddock and there were horses that were skin and bones. That's weeks and weeks of abuse.”

Amanda Scarsella said that she had turned over five horses to McGrapth. One, a 5-year-old broodmare named Fresh Face (Uncle Mo) has not been located and Scarsella said that she believed she may be one of the two dead horses.

The police report said that Johnson had offered to personally see that the horses would be taken care of, and he told TDN that he was unaware that there were any problems with the McGrapth horses.

“This was his operation,” he said. “I didn't feel it was necessary for me to go back and look over his shoulder at what he was doing. I would drive by the front of the part that he was leasing and I saw the horses in the paddock, I saw him out exercising, galloping the horses or whatever. I could see the shape of those horses and they were acceptable. There weren't any warning signs that I saw.”

Johnson said he looked into McGrapth's background before leasing him the stalls and received “glowing reports” on him. McGrapth had worked at Pin Oak Stud as a groom.

“I checked him out and his references were very strong,” Johnson said.

Bourbon County police said they plan to file a summons.

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“We applaud the Kentucky Legislature's passage of HB 229. By broadening the definition of property destruction crime to include livestock, this legislation is a big step forward in further deterring the abuse of horses. KEEP has long been a leader in advocating for the health and welfare of Kentucky's horses and is wholeheartedly supportive of this legislation.

“KEEP is grateful to Representative Matt Koch for his work to advance this legislation. Representative Koch is a champion for Kentucky's horse industry and community and we appreciate his work to ensure that the horse industry's $5.2 billion economic impact on the state continues to grow.”

ABOUT KEEP
The Kentucky Equine Education Project, Kentucky's equine economic advocate, is a not-for-profit grassroots organization created in 2004 to preserve, promote and protect Kentucky's signature multi-breed horse industry. KEEP is committed to ensuring Kentucky remains the horse capital of the world, including educating Kentuckians and elected officials of the importance of the horse industry to the state. KEEP was the driving force in the establishment of the Kentucky Breeders Incentive Fund, which has paid out more than $177 million to Kentucky breeders since its inception in 2006, and pari-mutuel wagering on historical horse racing, which has been responsible for more than $50 million to purses and more than $24 million to the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund.

KEEP works to strengthen the horse economy in Kentucky through our statewide network of citizen advocates. To learn more about how you can become a member or support our work, please visit www.horseswork.com.

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Within the last three years, Congress and the White House fortified the legal framework against animal abuse, enacting the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act and other federal statutes criminalizing malicious acts of cruelty. The new DOJ section would concentrate on enforcing those laws and other previously enacted animal welfare criminal statutes such as the Horse Protection Act (HPA) of 1970 that was designed to stamp out the cruel practice of soring Tennessee Walking Horses. The ACE Act was conceived in part to help better enforce the HPA after nearly a decade of failed attempts to pass the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act, and U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) regulations that would have eliminated the use of large-stacked shoes and ankle chains in the showring and revamped the industry's corrupt self-policing program.

“We applaud Congressmen Neguse, Joyce, and Cohen for the introduction of the ACE Act that would enable DOJ to ramp up enforcement of the HPA and stamp out soring, a task the USDA has failed miserably for more than half a century,” said Marty Irby, executive director at Animal Wellness Action, and a past president of the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders' & Exhibitors' Association. “Until meaningful penalties are meted out against blatant violators of the law, the cruelty practice of soring will persist. There must be a penalty to fit the crime.”

“U.S. laws are in place to protect animals from torture and abuse, but too often they aren't being enforced—including federal statutes such as the Horse Protection Act,” said Allondra Stevens, founder of Horses For Life Foundation. “Establishing a dedicated Animal Cruelty Crimes Division within the Department of Justice is an essential step towards fully investigating and prosecuting individuals that prey on animals. We fully support the Animal Cruelty Enforcement (ACE) Act and hope to see its swift passage into law this Congressional session.”

“Proper enforcement of animal cruelty laws will protect animal welfare and help keep our communities safe from the violence so often linked to these crimes,” said Congressman Joe Neguse (D-CO-02). “The Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act, which I am proud to have introduced with my bipartisan co-leads, seeks to bolster the prosecution of these crimes by providing the necessary resources and staffing for efficient enforcement.”

“As a life-long pet owner and a member of the Congressional Horse Caucus, I am proud to introduce the Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act alongside Congressman Neguse, to ensure that there is proper enforcement for crimes against animals,” said Congressman Dave Joyce (R-OH-14). “As a former prosecutor, I know we can do more to crack down on criminals who abuse animals, and as a Member of Congress, I feel obligated to provide the tools necessary to do just that. The ACE Act will improve the federal government's ability to investigate and prosecute animal cruelty crimes by creating a dedicated Animal Cruelty Crimes section within the Department of Justice, so that perpetrators of these heinous crimes will be held accountable in a timely, efficient manner.”

“Enforcement of laws already on the books, including those banning dog fighting and other cruel practices, is critical to ending these barbaric practices, which is what this measure aims to do,” said Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN-09), a member of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus. “I'm proud to support the Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act because inflicting harm on defenseless animals has no place in a civilized society.”

“Despite the unique role that horses occupy in our nation's history, and culture, they are still subjected to terrible mistreatment and deliberate cruelty,” said Scott Beckstead, director of campaigns at the Center for a Humane Economy, and a lifelong horseman. “The Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act will fortify existing protections and elevate the mission of the Department of Justice in protecting American horses and all animals from the most cruel and depraved elements in our society.”

A dedicated Animal Cruelty Crimes section at DOJ would allow for robust and effective enforcement of these crimes by designating personnel focused on these issues. DOJ already has dedicated sections on other important societal concerns, such as environmental protection, wildlife, and organized crime. Identical bipartisan, bicameral, companion legislation was introduced in 2020 by U.S. Sens. Mike Braun, R-Ind., John Kennedy, R-La., Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and will be reintroduced in the coming months.

Read more at EQUUS magazine.

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