My testimony to the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Rural Affairs

July 10, 2012        

To the Senate Committee on Agriculture & Rural Affairs

“I have come here to oppose the re-opening of slaughter plants for horses in Texas. As far as the economy is concerned, a live horse is worth far more than a dead horse. When you speak of investment you have to consider the long term outcome and return for your investment.

          When someone produces a foal and spends thousands of dollars just to get that foal to an age of trainability for some sort of job, it only makes sense to maintain that horse in the best condition for the rest of its life so it can continue to function. Even older horses that can no longer be ridden or work can serve as a companion horse. Also consider the thousands that are spent keeping the feed store, tack sellers, farrier and veterinarian in business all those years?

It doesn’t make sense to put all the effort and money and training on a horse and then go slaughter it for a couple of hundred dollars when it is no longer at the top of its game. Horses have uses for people at every stage of their lives, including when it comes time to put a horse to sleep. The experience teaches the lessons of life and death.

I have had 12 horses in my possession over the last 15 years. Some I bought, some I rescued. The ones I didn’t keep I found homes for. These horses come to mind when I hear ridiculous phrases like “Unwanted Horses”. There are no unwanted horses. Their owners just haven’t taken much time to market them to the right potential owners. If you were selling a used car you would put out flyers and take an ad in a local publication or the internet, right? So why don’t people do that with horses? They could probably get a lot more money by doing that than dropping it off at the livestock auction.

         

          What kind of Business Model is it to take what someone would consider discards, that is throwaway horses, and try to market them as a delicacy? Even worse are all the young healthy horses off the track and from performance disciplines that are loaded up daily and directly onto the kill buyers truck, without even a finger lifted to try sell or market them for another use. They might be considered even more of a delicacy except for the substances they have ingested which are banned from meat for human consumption.

          Horse slaughter is a sham…

          It is not an industry or a business…

          It is ALCHEMY!

          It is a slight of hand con game that works until people find out what is really going on. If you need to find an example of a similar industry which tried to pass off waste as a valuable protein disguised in other foods, just ask the people who produce PINK SLIME…

Or they USED TO produce it… they are out of business now, and for good reason!” ~