Written by Jeff Mackey
There is a certain kind of person, it seems, who enjoys dressing up like a deranged escapee from some historical theme park and swilling mint juleps just to watch horses run around a dirt track for a couple of minutes. But as a new PETA mobile billboard will remind visitors arriving at Churchill Downs to attend the 2013 Kentucky Derby, for the thoroughbreds who will be running on Saturday, horse racing is a matter of life and death.
PETA's ad will be driven up and down the streets outside the racetrack in the days leading up to and on the day of the derby. Designed by Dana Mulranen, a gifted graphic and interactive design major at Temple University's Tyler School of Art, the billboard draws attention to the misuse of both "therapeutic" and illegal drugs that the racing industry uses to keep injured and tired horses running, leading to the deadly breakdown of more than three horses every day on U.S. racetracks.
Even if they survive being pumped full of drugs and forced to run at breakneck speed on hard tracks, thoroughbreds face another threat when they can no longer compete: They are often transported to slaughterhouses. There, they are shot in the head, are hoisted into the air by one leg, and have their throats slit so that their flesh can be sold for human consumption.
Please urge your U.S. legislators to support the SAFE Act—the bill that stops the export of American horses for their meat as well as bans their slaughter within our borders.
And when it comes to the derby and all other horse races, don't attend 'em, don't watch 'em, and don't bet on 'em!
Visiting Washington, D.C., to give a motivational speech, the dynamic Jillian Michaels—one of the nation's top fitness gurus and star of NBC's The Biggest Loser—gave another motivational speech, this one in behalf of horses. Jillian visited Capitol Hill while on her tour Maximize Your Life and secured pledges from Sens. Barbara Boxer (seen below, with Jillian) and Dianne Feinstein of California to cosponsor a bill to ban the slaughter of tens of thousands of U.S. horses (including prize-winning former thoroughbreds) by the shameless horse-meat industry. Jillian's meeting with Sen. Boxer was in a hallway near where the legislator had to rush to the floor for a vote, but so many Hill visitors (including teen tourists, interns, and lobbyists) mobbed Jillian that she and PETA Vice President Dan Mathews had to retreat to Sen. Boxer's office to discuss the issues.
Besides saving horses, the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act, would also prevent toxic horse meat—it's routinely treated with a carcinogenic drug that can cause liver failure in humans—from entering the food supply. The bill, which would ban horse slaughter in the U.S. as well as the grotesquely cruel live export of horses for meat, has gained momentum following the proposed White House budget that would pull federal funding from inspections for U.S. horse-slaughter plants at a time when some states, including New Mexico, are trying to start up horse slaughterhouses again.
How You Can Help
Please join Jillian Michaels in urging your legislators to cosponsor and support the SAFE Act.
Written by Alisa Mullins
Buried deep in President Barack Obama's 244-page budget proposal is this gem: a reprieve for America's horses. The new budget plan includes a request for Congress to reinstitute a prohibition on the funding of U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors at horse slaughter plants, which would effectively put the kibosh on budding plans to resume slaughtering horses on U.S. soil. Translation? The Obama administration wants horse slaughter to stay illegal in the U.S.
A similar spending prohibition was implemented in 2005, but it was struck down in 2011. And now several companies are trying to reopen horse slaughterhouses in New Mexico and other Western states.
This defunding measure would be an invaluable stopgap to prevent horses from being slaughtered in this country while Congress debates the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act, which would not only outlaw horse slaughter in the U.S. but also close the loophole that currently allows horses to be cruelly shipped to Mexico and Canada for slaughter. This bill must pass or American horses will continue to die—even if it's not on our own soil.
What You Can Do
Please contact your congressional representatives and urge them to support this budget measure. And to protect horses in the long term and prevent them from being shipped over the border to slaughter, please also urge them to support the SAFE Act.
Authorities in Texas and Oklahoma are acting on complaints from PETA that a "kill buyer"—someone who purchases horses and transports them to slaughterhouses or feedlots—falsified forms certifying that horses who were being transported to slaughter were free of a deadly equine disease.
Twice last year, a PETA investigator rode along with the kill buyer as he moved dozens of horses he had purchased in Iowa through Missouri and Kansas to feedlots and transfer points in Oklahoma and Texas. The kill buyer was caught on tape admitting that the veterinary forms he carried "certifying" that the horses in his trailer were free of deadly equine infectious anemia (EIA)—a potentially fatal viral disease with no known cure or preventive vaccine—were actually those of other horses, not those on board his truck.
PETA alerted the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry and the Texas Animal Health Commission that the kill buyer, by his own admission, was bringing horses into the states without valid EIA paperwork, risking the health of hundreds of other horses when potentially infected horses were unloaded onto crowded feedlots.
The latest allegations in Oklahoma are part of a wider horse slaughter investigation involving allegations of stolen property, concealing stolen property, transporting stolen property across state lines, and other crimes.
Obviously, this kill buyer needs to be brought to justice, but he is just one piece of a large and corrupt industry. This case is just more evidence of the pressing need to pass the Safeguard American Food Exports Act, which would make it illegal to slaughter horses in the U.S. and to transport them to slaughter in Canada and Mexico. Please contact your representatives today and urge them to support this vital bill.
Written by Michelle Kretzer
The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act died last year when the congressional session ended and, along with it, our hope of permanently ending the slaughter of American horses for food in 2012. But we're getting another chance.
Senators and representatives from both sides of the aisle have come together to sponsor the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act. The SAFE Act would prevent horse slaughter in the U.S. and would slam shut the loophole that currently allows horses to be shipped to Mexico and Canada to be slaughtered.
Last year, more than 160,000 horses were crammed onto transport trucks and sent on grueling journeys across the border. A PETA undercover investigation of one such transport revealed that horses—including thoroughbred horses formerly used for racing—who were being shipped to Canada spent 36 hours on a truck in subfreezing conditions and were not given rest, food, or even a sip of water. Inside the slaughterhouse, workers shot the horses in the head with a captive-bolt gun, but at least 40 percent of them were still conscious after the first shot and had to be shot several times. Then they were strung up by one leg, and their throats were slit.
A full 80 percent of Americans oppose horse slaughter. But just feeling that way won't help. Please, let this be the thing that you do to help animals today. Urge your senators and representatives to support the SAFE Act.
You've got to act now because on Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the agriculture appropriations bill for fiscal year 2013, meaning that it will have to decide whether to continue to use taxpayer dollars to fund equine slaughter inspections. Last year, horse slaughter once again became a possibility in the U.S. after the government approved federal funds for inspections for the first time since 2006. But this year, Rep. Jim Moran from Virginia introduced an amendment—which the House House Appropriations Committee approved—prohibiting funds from being spent on horse slaughter inspections. Now Congress must decide whether to allow horses to be shot in the head and strung up by one leg before having their throats slit so that people can profit from the sale of their flesh.
Moran's amendment would get us one step closer to ending horse slaughter, but there is still a huge loophole. Horse-flesh dealers could still send horses to Canada or Mexico to be slaughtered, as they did during the years when no equine slaughterhouses were operating in the U.S. In addition to a painful and terrifying death, a PETA investigation revealed that horses were crammed into transport trucks and sent on grueling journeys of more than 1,000 miles in subfreezing conditions during which time they were never given food or water or a chance to get out and stretch their legs.
The Moran amendment echoes the feelings of the 80 percent of Americans who do not believe that horses should be slaughtered for their flesh, but in order to close the loophole, Congress must also pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011, which states that horses may not be shipped to slaughter outside the country. Please contact your members of Congress today to urge them to support this crucial legislation.
Through her work on The Biggest Loser, Jillian Michaels is accustomed to saving lives. But for one horse, her help arrived just hours before he would have been sent on a journey to become hamburger.
During a PETA investigation of horse slaughter, in which horses are taken from a meat buyer to a Canadian slaughterhouse, our investigators discovered ex-racehorse Royale With Speed packed into a "kill pen." A grandson of renowned Triple Crown winner Secretariat, Royale With Speed's racing days were over, and our investigators stood witness as he was sold for slaughter for $350. He was dehydrated and running a fever of 103.7 degrees Fahrenheit, and his lymph nodes were so swollen that they later burst and oozed pus through the skin.
We called the wonderful PETA supporter who cares for another of our rescued thoroughbreds, Coming Home, and she agreed immediately to give Royale With Speed a home on her ranch. Jillian stepped up to buy the horse and cover his transportation costs, and together, we were able to save him from enduring a 36-hour journey in subfreezing temperatures aboard a cramped transport truck—with no food or water—that would have ended at a slaughterhouse.
After weeks of intensive care, Royale With Speed, now renamed Gray Man, has fully recovered. He spends his days lolling on the grass and romping with his new friend Coming Home—who also has a new name, Little Winner.
Tens of thousands of horses are shipped to slaughter every year. Jillian has voiced her support for ending horse slaughter to Congress. Please join her.
Actor Ali MacGraw's latest love story isn't being played out on the big screen but rather in the halls of Congress. The longtime PETA member is working to protect U.S. horses from being transported across the border only to be slaughtered for dog food or human consumption. Ali wrote to her friend Sen. Tom Udall from New Mexico on PETA's behalf imploring him to support the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011, which she told him "would effectively end the use of U.S. horses for food."
Horse: Adrian Parnham | cc by 2.0 Ali MacGraw: (c) StarmaxInc
Last year, Congress restored funding for U.S. inspectors to oversee horse slaughter, making it legal once again for horses to be shot in the head, be strung up by one leg, and have their throats cut in the U.S. However, nothing has ever made it illegal to transport horses on a harrowing journey to Mexico or Canada—crammed inside low-ceilinged trucks designed for cattle—through all types of weather with no food or even a sip of water and then be slaughtered.
The new bill is terrific and vital because it would end both the slaughter of horses in the U.S. and the export of horses to Mexico and Canada for slaughter.
Please, Tom," Ali wrote, "will you sign on to this bill right away, vigorously support it, and persuade others in positions of power to do the same? Time is of the essence. This extremely important bill cannot be allowed to fall through the cracks.
Join Ali in helping end all slaughter of U.S. horses by asking your senators and representatives to support the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011. Because thousands of horses leave the country for the slaughterhouse each year, time is of the essence.
Written by PETA
"Death and Disarray at America's Racetracks"—this New York Times headline says it all.
And the findings of the newspaper's lengthy investigation into thoroughbred and quarter horse racing confirm what racing insiders have been telling us about their industry since Eight Belles died at the 2008 Kentucky Derby: Racing is a chemical-dependent industry in which too many people shrug off the casualties and turn their backs on the deaths of horses.
Now The New York Times has quantified the destruction:
On average, 24 horses die each week at racetracks across America. Many are inexpensive horses racing with little regulatory protection in pursuit of bigger and bigger prizes. These deaths often go unexamined, the bodies shipped to rendering plants and landfills rather than to pathologists who might have discovered why the horses broke down. . . . [A]n investigation by The New York Times has found that industry practices continue to put animal and rider at risk. A computer analysis of data from more than 150,000 races, along with injury reports, drug test results and interviews, shows an industry still mired in a culture of drugs and lax regulation and a fatal breakdown rate that remains far worse than in most of the world.
Our own investigations into thoroughbred export, breeding, slaughter, and auction abuses show that the racing industry in America has put the safety of the horses—who provide the industry with its income—at the bottom of its priority list when the animals' safety should be at the top.
Our suggestion? Stay away from the track, and take action in our efforts to help these horses.
Just envisioning horses crammed inside two shallow levels of a double-decker trailer intended for cattle, it's easy to see how these tall animals would be cramped, uncomfortable, and terrified. But forcing horses to squeeze into these confined spaces is more than uncomfortable—it can cause falls, injuries, trampling, and even death.
The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on a bill that would ban transporting horses in double-deckers, but one congressmember has proposed a last-minute amendment that would strike that provision from the bill. Rep. Cory Gardner of Colorado is asking Congress to approve his amendment to the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act because he feels the ban on double-decker trailers targets Western states and rodeos.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has already acknowledged that these trailers are unsafe and inhumane for horses and has banned transporters from taking horses to slaughter in them.
Inexplicably, it is not illegal to transport horses in double-deckers for any other purpose—but it should be. Ask your representative to support the humane treatment of horses and oppose Gardner's amendment that strips away their protection.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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