TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

And They're Off - To Slaughter

ADVERTISEMENT

By PHILIP MORGAN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 25, 2008

TAMPA - All eyes smile on Big Brown as the chestnut beauty races toward a possible Triple Crown.

Meanwhile, at lesser tracks across the nation, forgotten has-beens are finishing out of the money. The lucky ones will settle into pastoral retirement as reward for their moneymaking years.

Others will become featured entrees on foreign dining tables.

It's the dark side of the horse racing industry, and it's just beginning to catch the public's attention, horse rescue activists say. This month, HBO's "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" focused on the sale of faded racehorses to dealers working for Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses.

The program included graphic footage of a horse surviving several head blows from a bolt gun and another being stabbed in the spine to paralyze the animal and make it easier to slaughter.

In memory of Barbaro, the late, lame Kentucky Derby champ, Tampa lawyer Vanessa Nye is doing what she can to help stop the practice. A part-owner of five thoroughbred racehorses, Nye is a member of the national group Fans of Barbaro, which promotes legislation to ban transporting horses for slaughter.

A number of other organizations, among them singer Willie Nelson's Society for Animal Protection Legislation, are pushing for reforms, raising money for rescue and trying to establish funds to assure that thoroughbreds can retire to pasture.

All kinds of horses end up in slaughterhouses, from work horses to pets. But it's an extremely common fate for thoroughbreds, Nye says.

"I think to a lot of people, they're commodities. The horse gets older, injured, isn't producing, coming in third, and they don't want it anymore," she says. "'Get a better one. Get rid of this horse.'"

If owners have no alternatives, they can at least pay to have a veterinarian humanely put down the horse. That would cost about $60. Some owners would rather make $300 at an auction.

Last year, more than 100,000 horses were sold for slaughter in the United States, says Barbi Moline of Americans Against Horse Slaughter. The meat is especially popular in Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland and Japan. The demand for it becomes clear on a Google search for horse meat recipes: 221,000 hits.

A Winner's Nearly Dinner

A 5-year-old gelding, Little Cliff was headed for the dinner table in March, 10 days after the thoroughbred's last race, until Pennsylvania rescuer Christy Sheidy saved him from a slaughter pen. Little Cliff, once a stakes-class horse trained by the famed Nick Zito and winner of $202,762, had placed seventh in a low-level claiming race - where horses can be purchased up to a few minutes before the race starts. No one had "claimed" him, and his showing earned only $170 for the trainer-owner.

The Thoroughbred Times reported that Little Cliff was turned over to what the industry calls a "meat man" despite a notice in his file from Zito and his wife offering the horse a home in retirement.

The trainer-owner said he gave the horse to a man he thought would provide it a good home, says Sheidy, co-founder of Another Chance 4 Horses rescue in Bernville, Pa. The man sold it to a meat man, she says.

"It's a real common shuffle - 'Oh, they didn't know,'" Sheidy says in a telephone interview. "I can't tell you how many times I've heard that."

The public watched in horror this month as Eight Belles, the filly who broke two legs in the Kentucky Derby, was euthanized on the track. Members of the racing industry have called it a rare tragedy in the sport.

"What they fail to mention is that the race industry has thousands of fatalities annually - in the form of slaughter," Sheidy says.

In the past few years, individual states have closed down this nation's last horse slaughterhouses. Representatives of Canadian and Mexican slaughterhouses outbid others at auctions and transport the animals out of the country, horse rescue activists say.

Legislation Proponents, Opponents

Many times, Nye says, the horses are ferried under cramped conditions and given no food or water. Her group wants people to pressure legislators to pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which would ban the transport of living American horses for slaughter. House Bill 503 and Senate Bill 311 are stalled in Congress.

Barbi Moline of Stuart is a Florida group leader for Americans Against Horse Slaughter, which is pushing for the law. Moline, who has two retired rescued thoroughbreds, says the lawmakers blocking the bills come from big beef states.

The chief opponent, activists say, is Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. A group called the National Horse Protection League has put an appeal on its site to "Stop the Larry Craig Stall," referring to his arrest on charges of soliciting sex from an undercover officer in an airport men's room.

The beef industry is fighting it, Moline says, because beef sellers fear it will jeopardize practices for slaughtering cattle and pigs.

"They fail to realize that horses are and always have been companion animals," she says. "They're bred to be companions. Slaughtering horses is the same, basically, as slaughtering dogs and cats."

The possible domino effect of the horse bill is a concern of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, spokesman Joe Schuele says. Some members oppose the law because they use horses in their operations and need a way to dispose of old, injured and unmanageable animals, he says.

When horse slaughter was allowed in the United States, laws required that the animals be humanely killed. Also, horses didn't have to be transported long distances.

Not everyone can have a horse humanely put down and buried on the farm, Schuele says, and rendering plants, which turn horse carcasses into products - including pet food - charge to remove the horse.

Banning transportation for slaughter would leave the country with too many old animals to care for, he says.

Nye insists, however, that if enough thoroughbred owners take the time, most can find a home for their retired horses. The animals can be used in psychological therapy and prison rehabilitation programs, for example. If necessary, rescue groups will take them.

"Being a thoroughbred owner, it's so sad when you see horses coming in last at low-level claiming races," Nye says. "You know any day that they will end up in auctions."

Reporter Philip Morgan can be reached at (813) 259-7609 or pmorgan@tampatrib.com.

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT