Anonymous
Kill buyers are looking for healthy horses that can be slaughtered for horsemeat, a delicacy in parts of Europe and Asia.

The horse slaughter industry actually encourages the over breeding of horses. Because owners can make money from the brutal slaughter of their horses, they have an incentive to overbreed. If the slaughter of horses for human consumption is illegal, there is no reward for over breeding. Pet http://Abuse.com actually reported a decrease in horse abuse and neglect cases following closure of the last U.S. horse slaughter house in 2007.

Historically, there have not been increases in abandoned, neglected or abused horses following closures of horse slaughter houses. In 2002 the Illinois slaughter house burned to the ground and was out of commission for some time. Reports of abandoned, abused and neglected horses in the Illinois area were actually on the rise in the 2 years before the fire but decreased afterwards.

The number of horses slaughtered in the U.S. dropped significantly from over 300,000 annually in the 1990s to 66,000 in 2004. There was no notable increase during that time of abandoned, abused or neglected horses.

A recent study of trends in horse slaughter revealed the number of horses slaughtered was determined by a demand for horse meat primarily in Europe and not by the number of unwanted or abandoned horses. These findings contradict horse slaughter industry claims that if horse slaughter is banned, there will be large numbers of abandoned, unwanted horses. The demand for horsemeat creates a market where horse slaughter "kill buyers" compete with people who want to buy horses. This encourages owners to supply that market through over-breeding horses, for example. If slaughter of American horses for human food is made illegal, there would be less incentive to over-breed horses. The study shows that there would be no significant or sustained increase in unwanted or abandoned horses. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/06...

None of the horses going to slaughter are tested for drugs that are contraindicated for human use. The side of the wormer box states "not to be used in animals destined for human consumption." No one knows the number of horses treated with this drug.
8:28 PM Jul 11th

Anonymous
To "In the real world"

TAKE CARE OF THE HORSE. HORSES ARE OUR RESPONSIBILITY. Humans domesticated them and they trust us to do RIGHT BY THEM. Don't BETRAY THEIR TRUST!!!

There are plenty of examples of disappointment in this world but it doesn't mean you take the fast or easy way out.

If you can't support a non-performing horse, give the horse to someone who is willing and motivated to care for the horse no matter what the performance level of the horse.

You can CHOOSE compassion or you can CHOOSE cruelty. This is clearly a choice that we humans at the top of the food chain can make. Search your feelings. There is no reason why anyone has to choose cruelty.

The person who wrote critically on this board about the horse industry should be taken seriously:

"Years of overbreeding by unscrupulous thoroughbred and quarter horse breeders has brought us here. But letting them off the hook by sending their culled colts to slaughter is unacceptable and not a mark of a capitalistic economy. They got into a commodity business and now they don't want to deal with the slow side of it."

Here is a person in the horse industry who thinks responsibly. You can too.

Unscrupulous overbreeding must end. Just remember the law of supply and demand: if you flood the market with anything, the price will continue to decline. Alternatively, the less of anything you put on the market, the HIGHER the price especially when the horse comes from excellent breeding stock.
8:12 PM Jul 11th

Anonymous
To C.J. Oakwood:

If the best you can do is to criticize others, you are to be pitied. Your comment on another board about people having the choice to do what they please with their horses is yet more evidence of your crude behavior. What a shame that this great country with its vast opportunities has led to such uneducated and unethical people.
8:51 PM Jul 10th

Anonymous
I own horses and run a variety of horse related web sites. I also deal daily with the fallout of the racing industry (as well as the equally bad English and Western show industry). While Bonnie hasn't spent her life around horses, she is bringing important things to light. And the feelings of non-horse owning American apparently do matter to our legislators and to at least a few of us in the business.

As an industry, we're worse than boxing ever thought about being. We are completely ungoverned, except by incestuous organizations like the Thoroughbred owners and US Equestrian Federation (their President and the USEF equestrian of the year are husband and wife!).

A 50% growth in feed and hay prices has wrecked the show and race industry. Years of over breeding by unscrupulous thoroughbred and quarter horse breeders has brought us here. But letting them off the hook by sending their culled colts to slaughter is unacceptable and not a mark of a capitalistic economy. They got into a commodity business and now they don't want to deal with the slow side of it.

Here is a little Mark Twain for you doubters. Twain, a big supporter of animal rights, said once that you could judge a country by the way it treats its animals. We haven't changed a bit and it is a real shame.

A Horse's Tale

"How many times have I changed hands? I think it is twelve times—I cannot remember; and each time it was down a step lower, and each time I got a harder master. They have been cruel, every one; they have worked me night and day in degraded employments, and beaten me; they have fed me ill, and some days not at all. And so I am but bones, now, with a rough and frowsy skin humped and cornered upon my shrunken body—that skin which was once so glossy, that skin which she loved to stroke with her hand. I was the pride of the mountains and the Great Plains; now I am a scarecrow and despised. These piteous wrecks that are my comrades here say we have reached the bottom of the scale, the final humiliation; they say that when a horse is no longer worth the weeds and discarded rubbish they feed to him, they sell him to the bull-ring for a glass of brandy, to make sport for the people and perish for their pleasure."
7:22 PM Jul 10th

LRS
Steve, apparently you can't spell R-E-S-E-A-R-C-H? Horse slaughter has NOT been outlawed in the US. It has been in several states. You are obviously in over your head on this topic.

92.5% of the horses sent to slaughter are young, healthy and sound of mind - those are USDA statistics, not mine.

I think it's safe to say that 100% (or darn close) of the horse meat leaving this country is loaded with toxins and drugs labeled not for use in food source animals.

When the Europeans finally find out what they've been consuming, they are not going to be happy.

I volunteer in rescue and have seen firsthand the wonderful horses we've saved from slaughter and sent on to another career. A horse that remains in the economy adds much value (may be sold several times, needs food and care - providing jobs, etc); a dead horse is only worth the value of its meat.

And why are you commenting on equines? Isn't this a beef blog?
12:58 PM Jul 10th

Anonymous
Any one that does not realize the need slaughter has not been to the local rural horse sale to see what is really going on.A lot of these culls would be better off on a kill truck than a farm that cant afford to care for them.
9:50 AM Jul 10th

Anonymous
I am in the feed business and i aware of hundreds of horses shot and left to rot because people have not any market for unsound or bronc horses. The "rescue" feedlots are making a "killing" off of donations from poor saps that want to keep alive hundreds of useless equines.
7:00 PM Jul 9th

Anonymous
Those famous boobs you refer to, are you speaking literally or figuratively:-)
2:29 PM Jul 9th