The Texas Massacres: Horse Slaughter in America (1992)

There has been no rest for the incredibly, terribly weary. They arrive utterly exhausted, frantically falling over themselves as they dangerously slip on the feces- and urine-slicked floors of the two-tier cattle truck that has brought them here. They are pushed forward with electric prods into the temporary holding pens outside the killing plant. From California to Texas, they arrive bearing the scars of their strenuous 30-hour trek across state lines — from other states, the journey has been nearly 2,000 miles. They arrive injured, emaciated, pregnant. And they have come a long way; all of them: registered thoroughbreds, purebred Arabians, former wild ponies, speckled appaloosas, draft horses, donkeys, old-timers and newly born foals. Not a horse is safe from the Texas massacres.

A number of the horses in the 45-head-packed truck arrive too injured to walk from the transport themselves; like any downed animal arriving at slaughter, they are dragged by their legs to the killing floor. Dead horses are trashed — fallen and trampled victims of transport in a truck designed for animals half their size.

They arrive hungry. Thirsty. Terrified. But it matters not. In just a few hours' time, they will be forced through kill chutes, shot in their heads with captive-bolt pistols, butchered, packaged, refrigerated and shipped abroad by air and by sea to countries where dining on horse flesh has become a reborn fashion.

These images circle through my mind as I climb to the top rail and survey horses mulling about in the manure and fly-infested confines of the kill pen — their last stop here in California before the long and torturous journey to Texas. These hapless creatures — a mere unwanted hundred or two of the more than 300,000 butchered in the United States — have become statistics in the yearly export trade in horse flesh: the little Arabian, back from her lease to the U.S.-based Mexican "Charro" rodeo, badly banged and bruised; the big white blind mare who circles nervously in her so-called protective enclosure; a rose-grey Arabian with swollen, runny eyes whose "owner" fell from her and then branded her wild, dooming her to the kill pen; the seal-bay thoroughbred filly who walks with an unacceptable twist of her right rear pastern; the cancer-afflicted Welsh pony; the unmanageable pinto stallion who relentlessly expresses his dissatisfaction over this unusual confinement; they're all here: the emaciated backyard abuse cases, the "excess" racing stock, the lame, the injured, and the ill. Alone, by herself, an appaloosa mare lies colic-stricken beneath the rain-threatening sky. She was unloaded here due to an intestinal stone too painful to pass; if the condition doesn't kill her, the slaughterman will.

But these unfortunate animals are only the exception, not the rule. Fully trained, young, sound, well-groomed horses pack the dusty, stench-wreaking pens, competing with one another for impoverished food and muddy-colored water.

I spy a young dapple-grey Arabian gelding. A long black forelock falls across his face; the wind picks up his thick mane and tosses it over an arched neck. He dances, paws the ground for a moment and then stares across the roadway to where the mountains meet the sky. A friend climbs onto the fence beside me. "Nice horse," she whispers, and I agree. He epitomizes the spirit of one of the most noble animals on Earth.

Fifty million years ago, horses began their remarkable evolutionary ascent — but as recently as the Ice Age, human beings have been preying upon them for food, forcing wild herds over cliff edges as a means of slaughter. At the dawn of the New Stone Age — a mere 6,000 years ago — humans found ways to tame this flighty beast, raise it, as it were, for food, hides and then for transportation.

The horse had become the most important animal known to human beings and was believed to be fit for the gods — so much so that it was sacrificed in religious ceremonies, enabling believing consumers of its flesh to acquire its strength. With the advent of Christianity, however, old religious practices were discarded and in 732 A.D., Pope Gregory III passed a papal law forbidding the eating of horses. Before long, only pagans ate horses; overall, consuming its flesh had become taboo.

Instead, we found other uses for its strength and speed.

During World War I, more than one million horses died for the human cause; in one day alone, 7,000 equines poured their innocent blood onto the smokey battlefields. They plowed our fields, transported human belongings as well as human beings, moved covered wagons and stagecoaches across the West, provided the Pony Express and sheriffs' posses, built our cities, and helped to fight our wars. In short, it was the horse who raised Western civilization.

Today, the Edinburgh School of Agriculture in England has estimated the worldwide horse population at more than 65 million, 10 million of whom live in the United States. Each year alone, horse sports draw 110 million spectators; in dollars, horse care draws: $15 billion; investment and maintenance: $13 billion; and rodeos: $110 million.

And the trade in their flesh is estimated at $150 million. It is a hidden industry, dating back to age-old taboos. Even the "Society for the Propagation of Horse Flesh as an Article of Food" failed to encourage consumers to develop a taste for horse. This time, the failure was a result of a 20th century move toward respect for animal life and a growing worldwide vegetarian population. Still, the slaughter continues, supplying the demand for pockets of horse-eaters in France, Belgium and Japan. In the United States — though legal — the idea of eating horses is so offensive that kill buyers prefer to be called "horsetraders," slaughterhouses become "meat packing plants," and the byproduct of their industry is hidden in pet food cans and, more largely — about 90% of it — is shipped abroad where it remains mostly out of our sight and out of mind.

The dapple-grey Arabian steps forward. He is curious about me and nuzzles my foot. I'm told he's perfectly trained and has been in the kill pen but a day so he is still healthy and strong, his spirit unbroken. In Texas, he'll fetch about $800 in horse steaks. For $50 more, to encourage the kill buyer to relinquish him to me instead, I can take him home.

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