slaughter

After open letters to the industry Thursday from 1/ST President Aidan Butler and The Jockey Club backed the Save America's Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act, Breeders' Cup Limited also voiced support. Breeders' Cup Limited supports the Save America's Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation that would permanently prohibit the slaughter of American horses for human consumption and end their export for that purpose abroad. This measure represents a critical step toward ensuring all horses, regardless of their stage of life, are treated with decency and care. Breeders' Cup...

Following 1/ST President Aidan Butler's open letter to the industry Thursday outlining 1/ST's support for the Save America's Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act, The Jockey Club expressed additional support of the SAFE Act and the future of horse racing, pledging to advance landmark legislation and see it become law.  The Jockey Club stands with 1/ST President Aidan Butler and his colleagues at 1/ST for their support of the SAFE Act and their recent, highly effective work to gain attention for this critical issue for the future of horse racing. We pledge...

One of Maryland's leading trainers, Claudio Gonzalez, has been expelled from Laurel Park according to a story from the Paulick Report Tuesday. A brief statement from the Maryland Jockey Club reads, "Claudio Gonzalez violated the rules of The Maryland Jockey Club and has been expelled from the grounds." While the MJC provided no further information, the Paulick Report article links horses previously trained by Gonzalez to "questionable" homes, saying, "Bev Strauss, founder of MidAtlantic Horse Rescue, told the Paulick Report that a former Gonzalez trainee ended up at a kill...

Horse racing can pat itself on its back for the progress that has been made concerning horses sent to slaughter. Under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, horses are an amenable species, which means that horse meat cannot be shipped or sold for human consumption without inspection. With the government declining to foot the bill for inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration, every slaughter facility in the U.S. was forced to close. Tremendous strides have also been made when it comes to aftercare. There are dozens of wonderful charities out...

I was pleased to see the increased dialogue regarding Thoroughbred aftercare and the additional steps needed to reduce the number of horses needing homes in two recent TDN articles, "Open Letter to the Industry: When Does a Thoroughbred Earn a Safe Retirement?" and "Aftercare Not Meeting the Need." Unfortunately, they are two ships passing in the night when all horse industry boats should be rowing in the same direction.  Regardless of the front-end attention from owners and industry, Thoroughbreds will always fall prey to abuse until the export of horses...

The Save America's Forgotten Equines Act (SAFE Act) has a new lease on life after it was reintroduced in both houses on Feb. 27. The act would prohibit slaughtering horses for human consumption and would also make it against the law to ship horses out of the country for the purpose of having them slaughtered. No horses have been slaughtered in the U.S. since 2007. U.S. slaughterhouses were forced to close down because regulations prohibited shipping the meat overseas without the oversight of inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration....

In 15 starts, My Lil Dude won two races, hit the board six times, and earned $57,620, competing in Louisiana. Drive for Fun, a son of Distorted Humor, was more successful, winning three times and earning just under $200,000. But that wasn't enough to save either of them from being shipped from Evangeline Downs in May and ending up in a kill pen, the last step before crossing over the border to Mexico to be slaughtered. That's the fate of 20,000 American horses every year, an unknowable number of them...

Edited Press Release The U.S. Senate passed a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill Tuesday without any provision to ban the export of live horses to Canada and Mexico for slaughter for human consumption, putting in jeopardy the anti-slaughter provision adopted more than a month ago in the House by a voice vote. The Senate assembled anew its Infrastructure bill, taking the House bill and number, H.R. 3684, the INVEST Act, but little else. The Senate effectively stripped an amendment led by U.S. Reps. Troy Carter, D-La., Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., John Katko, R-N.Y.,...