LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – Two young thoroughbreds are recovering after a hit-and-run crash Monday, the latest in a series of collisions that have cost a Paris horse farm more than $1 million.
Kelli Cross, managing partner of Sovereign Farm, said her husband was hauling two yearlings to the swimming pool Monday morning when a driver rear-ended their trailer on Paris Pike and didn’t stop.
The impact sent the yearlings to the ground. Cross said both horses are back home recovering, but the lasting effects and their value at July’s auction are still unknown.
Repeated crashes
Cross says she’s been hit five times total, three times by uninsured drivers and another two where the driver took off. One of those landed her and her husband in the hospital for months and cost them more than $1 million.
She estimates she’ll have to pay $15,000 to fix the trailer from Monday’s crash.
“When you’re hit, and they don’t have insurance, you still have to bear the brunt, you know, pay your deductible and get things fixed,” Cross said.
Livelihood at stake
For Cross, a hit-and-run crash isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a threat to her family’s livelihood.
Cross has been at the Paris farm for about eight years. She trains horses for clients and raises her own to be sold at auctions.
“As a lot of people take corn to market or anything else, this is the crop that we’re raising to sell to provide for our family and our livelihood,” Cross said. “We do have employees here, so it doesn’t just impact me; it impacts others in the community.”
Cross says the industry touches everyone in the horse capital of the world, and hopes that other people will start driving more responsibly and take accountability when they don’t.
Search for driver
Cross said the Paris Police Department is working with her to try to find the person who hit them on Monday.
Cross posted the details on Facebook and is offering a $500 reward for anyone who can identify the driver.
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