Assignment 16 - Stephanie Bailey

Over 150,000 horses are sent across the borders of Mexico and Canada every year to be slaughtered. These horses include old show horses, race horses and wild horses who have been rounded up and taken from their original homes. These horses all have the potential to be and do so much more but because their owners can no longer afford them or have difficulty training them, the horses are sent to the slaughter house to be killed and used by glue factories, dog food companies, and shipped overseas to be eaten as equivalents of cattle. Horses helped us build this nation from the ground up and yet how are they repaid? Slaughter. Horses who are old or injured or are even just too hard to train all have purposes in this world and don’t deserve to be inhumanely killed. Horse slaughter is not good for the people who take part in it as these animals were not raised for consumption and most of them are injected with many performance enhancing drugs for their former jobs as race or show horses. I will walk you through the history of the horse, why their slaughter is detrimental to everyone involved, and what horses could do instead.

Horses were first domesticated during the Neolithic era in Western Europe. They are not native to America and were brought over with Europeans when colonizing America. In fact, when the Native Americans first saw Europeans on horseback, they thought they were attached to the horse’s backs and that they must have been aliens. Horses used to be our primary mode of transportation.  Some historians, like C. Kay Larson, would argue that the civil war could easily be nicknamed the War of the Horse because of the number of horses that were used and how much both the union army and the confederate army were dependent on the horse to carry out their battle plans. Now a days, civilians use horses for other important jobs such as equine therapy, racing, showing, and even just being a pasture pet for a little girl or boy who needs that special bond with an animal. The most important use for horses today that I cannot stress enough is their usefulness as therapeutic vessels.

          At the very beginning of the domestication of horses, they were used just like pigs and other livestock: they were eaten. Once humans began to realize their full benefits for humans as a riding and pack animal, they were only eaten when needed to for survival. Now horses are no longer used for transportation in most places but they have new purposes that are even bigger. They are not eaten in American very often but they are considered a delicacy overseas. Looking for a way to make money, these overseas countries came to the United States to establish slaughter houses because we have much healthier horses here and they can get better money for their meat. Their method of slaughter however is cruel and inhumane. Stunning which is the practice of hitting the horse on its head to knock it unconscious is the common practice for equine slaughter. This, however is not effective because of the sensitivity a horse has about things moving towards their heads. There is no effective way to restrain their heads so when they are hit, the animal is normally unconscious for twenty to thirty seconds, or just paralyzed. Once they are still, their throats are slit and they die by being bled out. The animal is often still conscious for this dismemberment of its body. This is not only inhumane and cruel but it can be prevented. The cost to euthanize these animals is around fifty dollars and that can guarantee that the animal never suffers however that cost takes away from the profit. These facilities are unsanitary and wasteful to say the least and they caused many problems for the towns that they were in. Slaughter houses in America were shut down in 2007 but in 2012, the discussion of their reopening became prominent. Because of this, Paula Bacon, governor of Kaufman, Texas where one of these facilities used to be located spoke out and said “My community did not benefit. We paid.” Blood clogged storm drains in the streets and the smell permeated the entire town. The drugs used for performance enhancement in our American racing and show horses prevent the ability for their blood to be used, and therefore, it is leaked out into the streets from time to time. The talk about horse slaughter plants being reopened in the United States have these towns standing up and speaking out against it.

Horses have the same ability as a dog or a cat to create a strong bond with a specific person but only horses can be used to help people with either mental, emotional, or physical handicaps. Equine therapy has been used all over the United States to help children who come from bad home lives, adults who have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from bad accidents, and veterans who come back from war unable to unsee the horrors they have seen. The emotions of a horse reflect and mimic that of the rider which helps people see when and how their moods change suddenly. When the rider begins to tense up, the horse does the same thing, but when the rider relaxes, the horse does too. This helps the person see that when they relax, everyone and everything around them becomes much more pleasant. For those who are physically handicapped, a horse is the only mammal on earth who has the same hip rotation as humans, meaning whenever a physically impaired person rides a horse, they can feel what it would feel like to walk. This is a frequent occurrence at CKRH (Central Kentucky Riding for Hope) which is located in the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. They are able to help around 300 participants each year through equine therapy with their emotional or physical handicaps. The bond that the horse and participants grow help heal any hurt they may have from the reality of their situation. In 2012 I volunteered at this organization and got the privilege of watching these bonds grow and the patient’s progression that corresponded.

          In conclusion, horses are never too hurt or old to become the whole world to somebody who needs them just as badly as the horse needs that human. Slaughter plants seek out not the crippled and sick horses, but the strong and healthy horses because their meat is worth more money. This past week, my old trainer went to the stockyards looking for a new rescue horse to be in her lesson program. She saw a beautiful paint horse who was reduced to skin and bones because of starvation and dehydration. She could not stop thinking about that horse and went back the next day to take it home. He first had to be sent to a rehabilitation facility for life saving treatment. Through research, she discovered that he was once a prized show horse with several different loving owners.  His last owner sold him to a place that promised to be a safe retirement home and he would live out the rest of his days in peace with plenty of food and love. Six months later, this same horse, was on its way to the slaughter house with almost no meat left on him. This is the sad truth of equine slaughter and I ask everyone to think about how the world could look without slaughter and then look at how it is now with it. Please fight for the banning of horse shipment to Canada and Mexico for slaughter because 92% of all of those horses are not sick or old, but strong and useful for at least one person. One person cannot save the whole world, but they can save the whole world for one horse. Thank you.