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The final walk before death |
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The British media focus attention on one
aspect of the racing industry that racegoers and the general public
rarely consider: the slaughter of racehorses. In 2007, Animal Aid,
an organization in the UK, released footage secretly filmed in an
English abattoir. The exposé was covered
in the British press.
Animal Aid September 18, 2007
The Daily Mail September 19, 2007
Other articles also highlight this tragedy in
England and elsewhere.
The Sydney Morning Herald February 3, 2008
The Guardian/Observer October 1,
2006
The First Post July 19, 2006
British Members of Parliament have also addressed
this issue.
Horse Passports (England) Regulations 2003
From
Animal Aid:
Secretly filmed in an English abattoir...
HEALTHY HORSES AND PONIES BUTCHERED FOR MEAT EXPORTS
Animal Aid today (Thursday, September 20, 2007)
releases footage secretly filmed in an English abattoir. It
shows discarded children's riding ponies and unprofitable race
horses being shot in the head with a rifle and then butchered
for human consumption....
Covertly recorded last month at Potter’s
abattoir in Taunton, the Animal Aid footage shows the killing of
a succession of apparently fit and healthy horses. One
conspicuous exception was a seriously injured chestnut mare who
was brought to the killing factory on the evening of August 14.
After a long delay, she was finally shot while lying in a
yard....
About 20 of the roughly 50 horses Animal Aid
filmed over just two days and one evening were Thoroughbreds
[horses bred for racing]. [Note: Defra, the UK Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, says the Taunton operation,
together with another in Cheshire, kills 6,000-10,000 horses a
year for consumption abroad.]
Says Animal Aid Director Andrew Tyler:
'The fundamental problem at the heart of the
horse slaughter scandal that we have uncovered is that these
horses are bred to excess. They are produced for commercial
reasons, by both the Thoroughbred racing industry and by those
servicing the pet horse and pony market. When an animal is no
longer useful, he or she is often simply disposed of. This is
the fate of thousands of healthy horses and ponies every year.'
 Read
the complete article on the Animal Aid website.
Read
the complete article in PDF format.
See
videos and photos from the exposé.
From
The Daily Mail:
The ponies abandoned by British children and
sent to France as horse meat
The slaughterman precariously balances a rifle
against the small grey pony's head.
Seconds later a shot rings out, the pony flails
on the ground and is then winched onto a production line.
This is the reality of the slaughter and
butchering of thousands of unwanted riding ponies and racehorses
at a British abattoir....
The remains of this pony, like much of the meat
that passes through Potter's abattoir in Taunton, Somerset, each
year will be sent to France as there is no taste for horse meat
in Britain....
Its latest annual report says it is engaged in
the "elective euthanasia of equines and export of horse
meat"....
The food and farming department, Defra, says
the Taunton operation, together with another in Cheshire, kills
6,000-10,000 horses a year for consumption abroad.
Animal Aid director Andrew Tyler said: "What
all the former owners have in common is the transient use of
their animal. They feel that their responsibility is
relinquished once the horse or pony is of no further use to
them.
Read
the complete article in PDF format.
Article © Associated Newspapers Ltd
From
The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia):
Racehorses for dinner
Racehorses are ending up on dinner plates
overseas as the gruesome trade in horse flesh booms.
"You can literally be watching a racehorse
run at Randwick [Australia] on the Sunday and the next week it
is on its way to a dinner table in Japan," horse welfare
advocate Laura Stoikos said....
Of the 17,000 thoroughbreds born last year,
only about two-thirds will ever make it to the racetrack.
Of those, most suffer injuries or do not run
fast enough and only about 1 to 3 per cent make it to top
events....
As with cattle and other livestock, the most
desired horse meat comes from younger animals in good condition
and with quality muscle, and that means young thoroughbreds.
Queensland vet Eva Berriman said young horses
still in their prime were being killed for human consumption.
"...The finger must be pointed firmly at the
racing industry, which has a very high attrition rate of fine
quality, well-muscled horses still in their prime, often with no
road open to them except to a horsemeat abattoir," Ms Berriman
said.
There is only one organised horse welfare group
in Australia, Cedar Springs Horses Inc, that rescues
thoroughbreds destined for the slaughterhouse.
Miss Stoikos [Cedar Springs Horses Inc] said
the treatment of the doomed horses was horrific. "They can smell
the blood and they are killed one after another and they can see
the horse in front of them killed so they know what is going on.
"People get upset when they see a racehorse
break down on the track that has to be shot, but for every one
of those horses there are thousands before it that never make it
that far....
"The racing industry
really turns its back on what happens to the horses."
Read
the complete article on the Sydney Morning Herald website.
Read
the complete article in PDF format.
From
The Guardian/Observer:
An undercover Observer investigation has
revealed the shocking fate of thousands of British racehorses.
It is known as 'the sport of kings', full of
glamour, effort and thrilling competition. But few of the
thoroughbred racehorses that gallop their elegant way around the
racecourses of Britain every week are left to see out their days
grazing in golden pastures.
For thousands of British thoroughbreds that are
too old, too slow or not good enough jumpers, the end is brutal:
a bullet through the temple or a metal bolt into the side of the
brain. Then their carcasses are loaded on to freezer lorries and
driven to France, where their flesh is sold as gourmet meat.
This mass disposal of thoroughbreds is the side
of the multi-billion-pound British racing industry that is
rarely mentioned and even more rarely seen. It is not illegal.
But animal welfare charities are demanding that more money be
spent to provide sanctuaries where horses can live in
retirement, and that the massive breeding programme that
provides the sport with its horses be scaled back. Most of the
animals, which could live on average more than 30 years, are
killed before their fifth birthday.
This weekend an Observer investigation shines a
light on this grisly underbelly of the sport. We reveal the two
British slaughterhouses whose 'knackermen' kill more than 5,000
horses a year, many of which were bred to entertain punters and
racegoers. We also reveal that a director of one of the horse
abattoirs claims to have killed horses for leading names in the
industry and that another is a judge at the Horse of the Year
Show.
There has always been a mystery about what
happens to the 4,000 British racehorses that are 'retired' each
year from the sport or the hundreds of young thoroughbreds not
good enough to make the starting post. Even the sport's official
body, the Horseracing Regulatory Authority, admitted to The
Observer that 'racing doesn't really know what definitely
happens to the horses when they stop racing'. Some will be
retrained for hunting or eventing; others will be used for
breeding. But the physical make-up of racehorses means that many
are not suitable for riders who want a gentle hack on a Sunday
afternoon.
Read
the complete article on the Guardian/Observer website.
Read
the complete article in PDF format.
From
The First Post:
Thousands of race horses are slaughtered
every year — and they're the lucky ones.
Five thousand racehorses end their careers each
year. This excludes the 375 in an average year which are raced
to death and the 4,000 foals which are considered not worth the
expense of training.
The owners of the 5,000 horses, which are
increasingly often syndicates, usually sell up after the glory
days end. Retirees meet several fates: leisure, neglect, or
slaughter for pet food.
What happens to thoroughbreds when they don't
make the grade, or when owners and trainers judge them unfit for
the track? This is about six years old for flat race horses, and
about 12 for steeplechasers. "So few racehorses are heard of
again after their careers are over," says John Francome, racing
commentator and champion jockey.
Read
the complete article on The First Post website.
Read
the complete article in PDF format.
From
Horse Passports (England) Regulations 2003
House of Commons Publications, Parliamentary copyright
James Gray, MP:
The fact is that we in this country do not eat
horses. Many Committee members would not eat dogs or cats.
Personally, I view eating horses as a revolting practice. Horses
are companion animals, and we should not encourage that
revolting practice in any shape, size or form. However, each
year approximately 10,000 horses—a small proportion of the UK's
one million horses—are killed in the UK and exported abroad to
be eaten.
Nearly all the horses that go for slaughter
are two or three-year-old racehorses that have been injured.
James Gray is Vice-Chairman of the
Conservative Back Bench Agriculture Committee, and the Conservative
Back Bench Department of the Environment, Horse and Pony Taxation
Committee. President of the Association of British Riding Schools,
Honorary Associate of the British Veterinary Association, Consultant
(unpaid) to British Horse Industry Confederation.
Although it does not focus exclusively on
racehorses, an article of interest about the slaughter of horses for
meat throughout the world is
Horse slaughter and horsemeat: the facts, by Dr. Eva
Berriman.
In the United States, horse slaughter has been
banned — the last remaining horse slaughterhouses in the U.S. were
closed in 2007. However, it is still legal to transport horses,
many of them former racehorses, across the borders to Canada and
Mexico for slaughter there. The Humane Society of the U.S. made this
undercover video of horses being transported in brutal conditions from the U.S. to Mexico
and then slaughtered. In Israel, many former racehorses will
inevitably be slaughtered — either within Israel or after transport
to other countries for butchering there. This
should not be part of Israel's future.
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