So-called ‘horse man’ placed on probation for cruelty to animals
WEST CHESTER » A Delaware man who makes his living trading horses and who lives something of a nomadic life has been placed on probation for cruelty to animal charges after he was arrested for leading two horses with a rope behind a pickup truck in 2020.
The man, Wilbur F. Frost, agreed not to possess any horse or mule during the period of probation, which will last six months. He must also undergo a drug and alcohol evaluation and follow any recommended treatment, according to the plea agreement, which was signed and accepted by Common Pleas Judge Analisa Sondergaard this week.
Frost, whose address was listed as Dover, has had earlier brushes with the law involving maltreatment of horses.
According to a story in the Hanover, Pa., Evening Sun, in February 2011 he pleaded guilty to one count of carrying a concealed firearm without a license and was sentenced to nine months in Adams County Prison.
Frost had initially been charged with three counts of carrying a concealed firearm without a license and animal cruelty, the newspaper said in its report. As part of his plea agreement, Frost relinquished ownership of Give Chrome, a standardbred trotting horse and winner of nine of 56 career races as a 3-year-old.
In early November 2010, Give Chrome was seized in Littlestown, Pa., after multiple calls were made to 911 complaining of a man repeatedly whipping a horse pulling his makeshift carriage on local roads. Give Chrome was found to have 10-15 large abrasions where his hide rubbed off from an ill-fitting harness, as well as a laceration on his leg. He was also underweight, the report stated.
Frost had told officers he intended to drive Give Chrome to Oklahoma. Frost has a prior conviction for abuse of horses in Kansas earlier in 2010, according to the report.
He was later was profiled in 2019 by a newspaper in North Carolina as a horse man who lived a carefree and hardscrabble life buying and selling horses. The report noted Frost’s resemblance to Abraham Lincoln, and when he appeared in Sondergaard’s courtroom he still bore that image.
“He has no home or family, and very little money to his name, but a man who looks strikingly like a famous president counts himself richer than most people he meets on the highways and byways of the central Blue Ridge Mountains,” the story in the Wilkes. N.C. Journal-Patriot, stated.
“He’s a horse trainer and trader, but don’t call him a horse whisperer,” read the story. “‘Nah,’ he chuckles, ‘more like a horse screamer.’ When the horse Abe was riding, called Luna, reared back and kicked Red, Abe indeed screamed. ‘Hey! Knock it off! She’s being a butthead,’ he exclaims, but still goes over to soothe the horse he calls ‘my lead.’ He adds, ‘She don’t usually misbehave like that,’ ” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
Latest arrest
In the Chester County case, Frost, whose age was given as 56 and birthplace as Maine, was stopped by two state troopers on Aug. 1, 2020, around 12:30 p.m. after a report of two men seen traveling on Lewisville Road in New London with two horses tied by a rope to the back of a Chevrolet van with Delaware plates.
One of the horses had a cut on its back.
Frost and the other man, identified as Kevin Coleman, said they had purchased the two horses from the New Holland Sales Stables in Lancaster County and had paid an unknown man to transport the animals with a horse trailer to Elkton, Maryland.
At some point in the trip, the men said, the driver began to use drugs and left them stranded with the horses in Elkton.
They decided, according to an affidavit filed by Trooper Daniel Finnegan, to return with the horses to New Holland, with the horses tied behind their van.
They were stopped 10 miles into their journey, with another 30 miles to go, according to the report.
Nether Frost nor Coleman had ample food, water or shelter to continue taking the horses through the summer heat, Finnegan wrote.
Asked where they intended to stay when night fell, the men replied vaguely, “the next safe stop.”
Veterinarians at the New Bolton Center in East Marlborough were contacted. Doctors there said the horses were dehydrated and that their health would have been endangered if they continued to walk the roads back to New Holland.
The horses were taken into custody by New Bolton at the time.
It is unclear what became of them.