Posts Tagged ‘Race Horse’

Proof: Canadian Food Inspection Agency Allows Tainted Horse Meat into Human Food Chain

Posted: December 17, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Slaughter
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Rebloged from the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition

The CHDC provides evidence of phenylbutazone entering the human food chain in Proof of CFIA Failure

Silky SharkOn December 11, 2012, Jack Rodolico of Latitude News reported on the story of Silky Shark, a Standardbred racehorse who was slaughtered and slipped through the system to dinner plates, when his carcass should have been condemned.

The CHDC provides evidence of phenylbutazone entering the human food chain in Proof of CFIA Failure.

The report ends with a list of emails for concerned people to contact within various Canadian government organizations.  Here are some talking points when you write with your concerns:

- Horses are not raised as livestock for human consumption.
- Horses come from unknown points to auctions and feedlots and, therefore, cannot be properly traced.
- The majority of pleasure and sport horses have received banned veterinary drugs during their lifetime.
- The EID program does not ensure reliable tracking history for horses.  Owners are only required to declare “to the best of their knowledge” that their horse(s) has not received banned drugs for the previous six months.  However, there is a long list of drugs that are banned for life including phenylbutazone and clenbuterol.
- The CHDC has evidence in their most recent reports of the failure of the EID program for North American horses.  These reports include “Proof of Failure” and “Pasture to Plate“.
- The CFIA only does random testing on less than 1% of horses.
- Despite the CFIA’s weak safeguards, the CHDC’s “Proof of Failure” report provides compelling evidence that a Standardbred racehorse received phenylbutazone and entered the human food chain.
- There is no scientific evidence that phenylbutazone ever leaves the body and it has proved fatal to humans.

Click (HERE) to read the full report!

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Ontario Race Horses Slaughtered for Meat

Posted: November 2, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Slaughter
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reprinted from the CBC News

Race industry blames provincial government policy ending slots at tracks for leaving it no choice

Click Image to View Video

An equine veterinarian near Windsor, Ont., says thousands of horses have been slaughtered for meat in the wake of Ontario’s decision to end the Slots at Racetracks Program.

Mark Biederman estimates 50 per cent of the province’s nearly 4,000 broodmares have been or will be slaughtered.

“Horses have been sent for meat, it’s that simple,” Biederman said. “Euthanization is expensive. Disposal is expensive. A lot of people don’t have that option, so they have been sent to slaughter.

“I’d say 50 per cent of the people I know that had broodmares have already had them euthanized or sent to meat, unfortunately.”

A local breeder also told CBC News several horses have been sent to slaughter this fall.

In Ontario, horses to be killed for meat are usually sent to the Ontario Livestock Exchange in Kitchener. Calls to the exchange were not immediately returned.

Business suffering

Biederman also said his business is down 60 per cent this race season. He laid off half his staff.

Windsor Raceway closed its doors Aug. 31, four months after the province announced the end of the slots program.

“If my wife wasn’t an Ontario native and loved Ontario, I might have been gone already because I don’t see with what’s left in Ontario that we’re going to be able to continue as we were,” Biederman said.

Biederman said 90 per cent of his work involved standardbred horses.

Ontario announced the end of the slots program March 31. Money earned from slots at tracks was split between the horse industry, track owners and the province. It generated $345 million for the horse industry each year.

Biederman said the cancellation of the program “makes no sense.”

“Everyone was benefiting. The horse industry was getting $300 million and the province was getting $1.2 billion [each year],” he said. “Ontario is no longer a desirable place to race or breed horses.”

Biederman said some breeders and racers have taken their business to American states where gambling at racetracks is legal. Ohio, for example, just approved gambling at racetracks this year.

“All these states were envious of Ontario and said, ‘We would love to push for slots at racetracks and alt gambling to augment purses just like Ontario does.’ All those states’ purses have risen and Ontario’s will drop,” Biederman said. “You go where you can make the most money, but that is no longer Ontario. People will relocate where they can make money. It’s just like job hunting.”

Expert recommend industry changes

Earlier this week, a panel of experts recommended to the provincial government that live race dates in Ontario be slashed in half, to 800 each year. It also recommended the business become “customer-driven” and purses become smaller.

“There’s absolutely no shot of us being able to continue. It won’t work,” said second-generation horse breeder Mark Williams. “I can’t morally see how there’s an advantage to putting one citizen out of work, never mind tens of thousands.

“Not to mention what’s going to happen to all our horses.”

The Ontario Harness Horse Association told CBC News the report marks the death of the industry.

“Rather than killing the industry off completely in one fell swoop, they’ve crippled it, which will ultimately lead to its death,” said Brian Tropea of the OHHA. “It’s just going to be a slower death.”

Adding to the difficulty in finding horses a new home is the fact feed and hay costs have skyrocketed because of an Ontario drought this summer.

Tropea said there is no choice but to “reduce the herd.”

Click (HERE) to view video and to comment
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Beau Jacques Case Not Only Sad, But Worrying

Posted: January 24, 2012 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Slaughter
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Commentary by Laurie Dixon from HorseTalk.co.nz

Race Horse Sent to Retirement, Instead Goes to Slaughter

Beau Jaques

The sad demise of former racehorse Beau Jacques will upset any horse lover.

Here was a thoroughbred gelding who, at five, was at the end of his racing career.

Owner Kevin Patterson had spent $US1000 in veterinary care to help Beau Jacques over a tendon injury suffered on March 29 last year, in the first step in getting him right for a new career after racing.

Kelsey Elva Lefever, 24, met with Patterson in May and held out the promise of a bright future for Beau Jacques.

Patterson gave Lefever Beau Jacques on the understanding she would find him a new home and he was not to be sold for meat under any circumstances, according to a probable-cause affidavit signed by Trooper Colleen Shelly, of the Pennsylvania State Police Department.

Patterson also gave her $US200 and 10 bags of horse feed to help Beau Jacques on his way.

He said if she needed any more money to help with Beau Jacques, she should get in touch. If things didn’t work out for his horse, he would take him back, he added.

Lefever asked if Beau Jacques had been medicated recently. Patterson confirmed the horse had received penicillin, naproxen and phenylbutazone.

In little more a week, through checks made by a volunteer with the charity, Animal Angels, it was established that Beau Jacques was in the trailer of a known kill buyer who sends horses to a Canadian plant.

The court will obviously decide the outcome in this case, with Lefever facing five charges – one of deceptive business practices and four counts of theft by deception over the sale of four horses, including Beau Jacques.

One wonders, however, whether the authorities will choose to pursue another interesting aspect that arises out of this case.

The affidavit indicates that the kill buyer in question paid, in total, $US1661 for four horses, including Beau Jacques, who were shipped from Pennsylvania to a Canadian slaughter plant.

Given that Lefever asked about medications, and Patterson made it clear that Beau Jacques had received three different drugs within the preceding two months, including phenylbutazone, it is interesting that Beau Jacques made it to slaughter at all.

There is no legal withholding period for phenylbutazone. Once a horse has received the so-called “horse’s aspirin”, it is no longer suitable for human consumption.

What became of Beau Jacques? Did his paperwork indicate he had received phenylbutazone and he was rejected at the plant? Did the paperwork show he had received phenylbutazone and went for petfood instead? Or did his paperwork show no known medication record and he was processed for human consumption?

Anti-slaughter advocates argue that horse slaughter is cruel and unnecessary. They also argue that horses are not raised as food animals in the United States and the wide use of medications such as phenylbutazone make them unsuitable for the human food chain.

The head of the Humane Society of the United States, Wayne Pacelle, describes the horse slaughter industry as disreputable and predatory.

The circumstances outlined in Officer Shelly’s affidavit lend weight to that argument.

In this case, Beau Jacques had an owner clearly determined to ensure his retired racehorse had a future. He helped with money and feed, and made it clear he would take the horse back if things didn’t work out.

That Beau Jacques never got that chance is distressing.

Please click (HERE) to visit HorseTalk and to Comment
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Equine Sanctuary Certification an Answer for Further Abuse and Neglect

Posted: March 19, 2011 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Rescue
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Forward by R.T. Fitch ~ Author/Director of HfH Advisory Council

Ensuring Best Practices is the Key to Horse Rescue Success

Photo courtesy of the New York Times

Over the past several days a dreadful news story has broken about one of the largest Equine Rescues in the world, the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, willfully and without explanation allowing the care of some 1,000+ horses deteriorate to the point of starvation and death.  Well funded but grossly mismanaged the organization unraveled with the horses, who were promised a comfortable and painless retirement, getting the bitter short end of the stick.

Click (HERE) to read the story and acquire the background.

Of course this sort of disaster has the likes of Dave Duquette, self proclaimed co-leader of a sub culture horse eating club, jumping up and down ranting that bloody horse slaughter plants would have prevented this.

But unlike Duquette and his minions the sane answer that would aide in the prevention of further sanctuary failure is to ensure that sanctuary/rescues meet a high standard of best practices in not only caring for their equine charges but also on how they run their business.  To provide long term care for any animal takes a strategic and aggressive business plan to ensure that funds will be available for the animals, long term.

For many years Jerry Finch, founder and president of Habitat for Horses, and I have sat and mulled the issue of certification/standardization of equine rescues in an effort to ensure that abused and neglected horses would not face a repeat of their pain through the failure of a half baked, backyard horse rescue operation, and there are a wagon load of them out there.

Finally, Jerry found an avenue and agency to achieve this goal through the auspices of the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries.  Proudly, Habitat for Horses is the first Equine Sanctuary to be accredited by GFAS and has been the model for additional certifications as the program has moved forward.  GFAS assures that it’s members are above reproach and offers training and assistance for sanctuaries in an effort to ensure that a host of species represented are cared for at the very highest possible standard.

Below is an article from the NYT stipulating that if the TRF had made an early move to become accredited by GFAS the odds of this disaster occurring would likely have been greatly diminished.  It’s of importance to note that the United States first equine advocacy group, the ASPCA, endorses this concept and points other benevolent organizations to seek this accreditation.

This is an answer and a way forward to help in assuring the future success of sanctuaries/rescues and in so doing ensuring a rightful retirement for our equine companions who have given us their all. ~ R.T.

Reprinted from the New York Times

The New York Attorney General’s Charities Bureau will review complaints about fiscal irresponsibility and improper care given to former racehorses that have been leveled against the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation.

The foundation, located in Saratoga Springs, is one of the largest private organizations in the world dedicated to caring for former racehorses. It has been so slow or delinquent in paying for the upkeep of the more than 1,000 horses under its care that scores have wound up starved and neglected, some fatally, according to interviews and inspection reports obtained by The New York Times.

Despite receiving millions in donations, the foundation has been operating at a deficit for the past two years, according to its financial documents, and as a result has not reliably been paying the 25 farms it contracts with to oversee the retired horses. At the 4-H Farm in Oklahoma, inspectors last month could find only 47 of the 63 retired horses that had been assigned to it. Many of those were malnourished. Inspectors concluded that the rest had died, probably of neglect.

Last week, at a Kentucky farm that is supposed to receive money from the foundation, 34 horses were found in “poor” or “emaciated” condition, inspectors found. One horse had to be euthanized because of malnutrition.

“While we cannot comment on potential or ongoing matters before our office, we take these complaints seriously and will review them,” said Lauren Passalacqua, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office.

The foundation also was told last week that it was losing its funding from the A.S.P.C.A. Last year, the A.S.P.C.A. gave the foundation $175,000 from its Million Dollar Rescuing Racers Initiative. Jacque Schultz, senior director of the A.S.P.C.A. Equine Fund, said the foundation was told that to be considered for another $175,000, it had to obtain accreditation from the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries. “They didn’t make satisfactory movement on that front,” Schultz said.

In a statement, Schultz said, “The A.S.P.C.A. Equine Fund grants program seeks to award equine organizations who strive to achieve best practices, including exceptional equine care and innovative and robust fund-raising practices.”

Click (HERE) to read the story in it’s entirety

Hope for Slaughter Bound Horses Rides Upon the Seat of a Bike

Posted: June 11, 2010 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News, Horse Slaughter
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Horse racing at Churchill Downs.
Image via Wikipedia

By Bill Finley of ESPN.com

Mark Cramer likes lost causes, and in America’s slaughterhouse-bound, retired racehorses, he has certainly found one. These are the rejects, the horses who are either too slow or too infirm to win a meaningful amount of money on the racetrack or be sent to a cushy life on a breeding farm somewhere. Hardly anyone cares about them and the racing industry does little to protect them, which is why an appallingly high number of retired thoroughbreds are shipped each year to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada to be butchered for their meat.

This is a problem that should be solved by the leaders of the industry and its wealthiest participants, but that doesn’t seem to be happening, so the 65-year-old horseplayer and author decided to do something on his own. Starting July 3, Cramer and friend Alan Kennedy will bike across France from racetrack to racetrack to raise awareness of the horse slaughter problem on a mission he is calling “Riding for Their Lives.” The bike trip is devoted to raising money for the U.S.-based Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and a French horse rescue group.

The TRF finds homes for retired thoroughbreds that might otherwise be sent to slaughter and places many of them at prisons. There they are cared for by inmates, many of whom turn corners in their lives thanks to the recuperative powers of working with and developing a compassion for the animals.

“There are those claimers out there who ran hard for me and I got a big payoff in an exacta or something like that,” Cramer said. “I don’t want to see them die when they are done racing. They live a good life when they are racing, but after that how can we just toss them away? So many of us derive so much enjoyment from this. It’s about our own humanity, not just saving these beautiful animals.”

Cramer was born in the U.S., which is where he discovered horse racing. He has lived abroad for years, moving from Bolivia to Spain and then to France, where he has resided for the last 11 years in a town just outside Paris. He’s still an avid horseplayer and boasts that he has made a nice profit over the last several years wagering blindly on Gina Rarick, believed to be the only American-born trainer in France, and playing the French version of the superfecta. He’s also become quite enamored with bike riding and began to pedal around the country two years ago visiting racetracks. This year, he hatched the idea of expanding his tour to its current format and riding on behalf of a cause.

“One of the reasons we picked the TRF is because you can see a concrete result,” he said. “Not only do they save unwanted horses, they save unwanted human beings because they have farms at prisons where inmates get vocational training and it is great therapy for them. With the horses and the inmates, something very productive is happening.”

He and Kennedy will be on the road for 22 days and will cover about 600 miles. Among the racetracks they will visit are Deauville, Vichy, Clairefontaine, Saint-Cloud, Compiegne, Maisons-Laffitte and Longchamp. At his age, that doesn’t figure to be easy, but he’s counting on the mind-over-matter factor.

“Exercise is usually boring,” Cramer said. “We believe in something called purposeful activity, which is exercise where you’re accomplishing something at the same time. That makes it fun. I don’t look at it as our making a sacrifice to save retired thoroughbreds from the slaughterhouse. We enjoy doing this and since we know there is a purpose, a beautiful purpose, getting up a hill is much easier than if we were going up there just to go up there.”

That a resident of France would be among those coming to the rescue of American racehorses is ironic. Americans don’t eat horsemeat, but the French do. France is one of a handful of countries that import horsemeat from the Canadian and Mexican slaughterhouses that U.S. thoroughbreds are sent to after their careers end. Cramer said that’s not indicative of how most French people feel about animals.

“There are a lot of organizations in France that exist to save horses,” he said. “There’s one we are working with, which is called the League for the Protection of Horses, and we’ll be riding for them, too. I know a lot of French people and none of them I know eat horsemeat. I know it happens. My wife has seen it sold in grocery stores. I don’t think it is pervasive. We’ve had a wonderful reaction in France, from journalists, from people at the tracks. We’ve gotten support from the French Jockey Club on this.”

He advocates the creation of a plan whereby owners, trainers and breeders make mandatory contributions into a central fund that would create the type of capital needed to guarantee a safe and humane retirement for all retired runners. Cramer said the French racing industry is exploring such a system. Until then, he will do what he can, hitting the roads and racetracks of France on his mission to right a wrong.

Bill Finley is an award-winning racing writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today and Sports Illustrated.

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Opinion: So another horse dies in the Calgary Stampede, what’s the big flippin deal?

Posted: July 7, 2009 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News
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If you haven’t caught this news article, floating around the web, please see below:

Another horse bites the dust, I guess its back to the auction for another nag.

"Another horse bites the dust, I guess it's back to the auction for another nag.


CALGARY – A horse has died of a heart attack following a chuckwagon race at the Calgary Stampede.

Stampede spokesman Doug Fraser says the horse finished a heat and a post-race walk in front of the stands Sunday night before collapsing on its way back to the barns.

He says the horse showed no signs of stress during the race.

Fraser says it’s very rare for a chuckwagon horse to die of a heart attack.

The Vancouver Humane Society has been watching the Stampede as part of its campaign to end rodeo events that can cause stress or injury to animals.

The society says three chuckwagon horses have died of heart attacks in the last decade.

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So he says, “What’s the big flippin deal?  Only three (3) horses have died from this one event, alone, over the past ten (10) years.  That’s not out of line, look at all the fun that all those people had, over the years, watching those horses run their hearts out.  Heck, look at all of the other keen events where horses are jumping around and doing wild stuff.  It’s cool.  What do you bunch of commie bastards want to do, take away rodeo?

Hell, first you tell me I can’t sell my trusty old friend to a meat packer so that I can claim a few hundred dollars for his tired carcass when he is old, then you tell my how I am supposed to treat him while he is alive (like how I am supposed to feed and water him and crap) and now you don’t want me to have any fun with him?  What kind of tree hugging, vegetarian, pinko, commie sissy are you?

My horse is my property and I will do with him as I please, just like my ole Chevy truck.  I will gas him up when I want to, shine it up when I need to, and sell it for parts when it is worn out and I don’t need no city slicker tellin me what to do.  I’ll bet you never had to pick dust out of your nose or hay out of your drawers even once in your life.

So leave us telligent, animal friendly types alone.  We know what to do with our horses cuzz they are an investment and if I want to beat the piss out of mine, running around in a circle in an arena so that the purtty girls see me and maybe I will win that hunnertd dollars, then that’s my damn business.  The rest of you can go suck on a horse turd.  Giddiee-up!!!”
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Sound familiar?  If you have been an Equine Welfare Advocate, for any length of time, you have heard this same out lash ring in your ears, personally.  I have, and on more than one occasion, but what actually brings a little humor into the entire arena is the gross and unabashed untruths and total disconnect with reality that hovers around such instances.

Yes, it is extremely upsetting to see a horse die in a situation where he/she had no say in the matter.  But does that mean that we want rodeo to disappear, no.  Do we want stupid and unthought through stressful activities to go away, yes.  Simple.  My wife’s horse loves to be in the Houston Livestock and Rodeo parade because he is a Ham, he loves the attention and it is his opportunity to be an equine ambassador to the masses, but do we hitch him to a cart and beat him senseless while racing other terrified horses around an arena, no.

Common sense can pay great dividends but the trick is to ensure that all of us are on the same page as to what “common sense” really is.  In my simple, mind’s eye it is easy, “Don’t put your equine charges into situations that can/could be damaging to either their physical or emotional well being”.  But then again, as stated, I am simple…but does it really have to be any more complicated than that?

R.T.

R.T. Fitch
Author – “Straight from the Horse’s Heart“
The Force of the Horse®, LLC
1-800-974-FOTH
www.rtfitch.com
www.habitatforhorses.org

Retired Racehorses Dodge Slaughterhouse To Fight Crime

Posted: June 24, 2009 by R.T. Fitch in Horse News
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Retired race horses like Broadway Kevin are finding new careers fighting crime.

Retired race horses like Broadway Kevin are finding new careers fighting crime.

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) Broadway Kevin waited in the auction holding pen, a successful harness horse whose life was now worth less than the cost to take care of him.

If the local Amish farmers bought him, he’d spend his last years pulling carriages over the countryside. If the meat procurers won, a horse that went to the winner’s circle five times would be shipped to Mexico and Canada to be slaughtered for meat to be sold in Europe and Japan.

Broadway Kevin caught a break: The 11-year-old was sold for $525 to a rescue group and became a member of the Newark Police Department’s mounted patrol. Across the country, retired race horses like Broadway Kevin are finding new careers fighting crime.

Retired standardbreds and thoroughbreds have run downs hoodlums in Newark, thwarted car thieves in Richmond, Va., patrolled the streets of Omaha, Neb., and guarded the trails of some of the nation’s most beautiful parks.

“The common trait among the race horses is that they are smart and they can learn their jobs. They are well suited for police work,” said Jennifer Nagle, the adoption manager of the Standardbred Retirement Foundation in Hamilton, an organization that seeks homes for former harness horses who have either finished their racing careers or whose owners can no longer provide for them.

Overbreeding, the recession and the high cost of care has sent the number of unwanted horses skyrocketing. The last horse population census, done in 2005, showed 9.2 million horses in the United States, up from about 5.5 million in the mid-1990s, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

Nagle said owners who used to call and offer one horse for adoption may now be seeking homes for five or six.

(AP Photo/Mike Derer)

Photo: Broadway Kevin on duty in Newark, N.J.

Last year, 98,963 U.S. horses were shipped to Canada and Mexico in 2008 for slaughter, according to Keith Dane, the society’s director of equine protection.

Saving horses can be costly. Ellen Harvey, who is the executive director of Harness Racing Communications and works with rescue groups, said it cost $3,000 in rehabilitation and training to get Broadway Kevin, now named Saber, ready for his second career.

The recession is affecting some mounted police units. Boston plans to disband its 12-horse unit in July and Camden, N.J., plans to shut its unit because feed and veterinary costs are too high.

But in Newark and other cities, police say horses are a key part of their force.

Thirteen of Newark’s 18 mounted horses are standardbreds and at least three others are thoroughbreds. Most of the standardbreds came from the retirement foundation, which has found new homes for more than 2,000 horses in its 20-year existence.

“Like humans, no two horses are the same,” said Lt. Robert Marelli, director of the mounted unit in Newark. “Most have good temperaments, they are not highly excitable and are used to being around crowds from their racing days. I’m happy to give them a second chance here.”

A few weeks ago, officer Dennis Dominguez was patrolling Broad and Market Streets in downtown Newark and saw three young men pummeling another man. When one of the suspects fled on foot, Dominguez tracked him down on his police horse named — what else — Justice.

“He thought he was going to get away, but you can’t outrun these horses,” Dominguez said. “This is what they do. They are thoroughbreds, they are race horses. I did what I had to do. I’m glad I caught him.”

Sgt. Eric Bardon, officer in charge of Richmond’s six-horse mounted unit, said even on the roadways, horses are an effective crime-fighting force. He recalled how three standardbreds help nab a car thief.

“The car was stopped at a light and we surrounded him,” Bardon said. “The guy gave up. He really wasn’t expecting it.”

Besides working in police departments, some former harness horses have joined the military. Three serve as riderless horses at funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. Sergeant York, who was the riderless horse at the funeral for President Ronald Reagan, used to race at Freehold Raceway in New Jersey as Allaboard Jules.

The older Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., also has a novel program with prisons in eight states which allows inmates to care for horses.

“It’s about caring for horses and saving lives,” said executive director Diana Pikulski. “The horses need someone to care for them and love them, and the inmates need someone to care for and love.”

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