Saturday, May 31, 2008
Week 9 - HBO's "Running for Their Lives"
Above you will find part one of HBO's powerful documentary on horse slaughtering called "Running for their Lives." This documentary follows the "stable to table in 7 days" journey of a once champion race horse named No Day Off. Stable to table in 7 days describes the heartless slaughtering of race horses who don't win.
Horses who are not winners or used to be but are now losing are sold by their owners to what the video refers to as "meat men" for a mere few hundred bucks. These horses are sold by their owners because 1) they "aren't running good no more," 2) to cut costs from the owners -- why? because paying to maintain them and paying for veterinarians costs the owners a lot of money. While the owners do not make much money off of selling the horses to the meat man (its really nothing since the horses are sold for $300, $400, and at max $500 dollars) the horse slaughtering industry still manages to purchase over 100,000 horses for slaughter.
To top it off, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which passed last year in the House but has yet to be passed in the Senate, seems to have a huge loop hole in it. This loophole even adds more to the suffering of these horses. This US law bans horses from being slaughtered in the US -- it does nothing to really stop the outsourcing of this slaughtering to neighboring countries such as Mexico and Canada. What makes these horses suffering even worse is 1) the amount of traveling these horses have to go through to be taken to the slaughterhouse and 2) there are relatively zero restrictions in Mexico and Canada on how these animals can be slaughtered when they are taken there.
Using your dollars to stop supporting companies that support rodeos, horse races and the horse slaughtering industry is one of the most effective ways to change these peoples behavior. Also write your local Congressman and Senator and let them know you have seen this video and that you are outraged that this is happening in America!
DISCLAIMER -- this video is graphic showing the slaughtering process where horses are processed and herded like cattle, "stunned" with a bolt gun and/or bled to death hanging by their feet.
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2 comments:
Do I have a story for you. Three years ago, my daughter and a friend became involved in a horse rescue here on the East Coast. We live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, look for Ocean City, Maryland and you are pretty close.
Our friend Nicki ended up adopting one horse, and we ended up adopting another one.
These horses were born in March and April of that year and we adopted them in July, so they were about the size of large dogs at the time.
These beatiful babies were "milk mare foals". When a race horse is born, he is taken away from his mother and given to another mare who has just given birth, so that his mother can be bred again. The baby of the "milk mare" is considered to be a "by product" of the horse racing industry, and these babies are tossed aside, and sold to Canada (for meat), or anywhere that will use the horse meat.
I am happy to report that with much love and care from our family, and lots of advise from the race horse owners at the stable where we boarded them for the first year of their lives, these two have grown into beautfiful 3 year olds.
We have now moved out of town, and have a small pasture for our beautiful Appaloosa Shiloh, and Nicki's precious Spirit lives on a farm with her in laws.
I'll send you pictures of them via e-mail if you would like.
Our two horses are the only two of the group that survived to adult hood.
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