I am just going to come right out and say this and this is MY perspective - Lately there seems to have been an increase in prices on horses heading to slaughter and this has initiated a lot of conversations and speculation. With Mexico being under restrictions from the EU, one would think that prices on horses would drop as there would be far more horses available; however, if the numbers of horses heading to slaughter from the U.S. were approximately 170,000 with approximately 100,000 of those being through Mexico and if Canada is still supplying the same numbers as before, horse meat would be less available in Europe which would drive the price up. I do not believe that Canada can pick up the slack if they are continuing to operate under the same circumstances that they currently are - they can only kill so many in one day so even if they doubled up the operations with night shifts, that still will not pick up the total from what would have gone to Mexico. Now within the tb people this has also turned into a lot of conversation about purchasing horses back from kill buyers and/or lining kill buyers pockets. Here is my take on this. Of that total of 170,000 horses heading to slaughter from the U.S., it is estimated that roughly 20 percent of those are thoroughbreds. Those are the horses that ARE killed at slaughter plants. That would be approximately 34,000 tbs per year. On top of this number there is a percentage of tbs that tb advocates purchase back from kill buyers that would have been added onto this 34,000. I am betting that that percentage is minute in comparison to that 34,000. This leads to WHO is really lining the kill buyers pockets. Is it the tb advocates that manage to pull that minute number from the killers or is it those that supplied these horses to them in the first place. We all are, we are ALL guilty of lining the killers pockets - every single person that has ever stepped up to help bail a horse out of a kill pen AND every single person that orchestrated their being there in the first place. Of that 34,000 that ARE killed plus the ones that ARE saved, there are no statistics on who started the ball rolling but I think one could easily bet that a lot of those came directly from those in the industry. We have known for YEARS that the killers have pens full of hands off horses. Why are these horses hands off. They are hands off because they come from people who do NOT want to get caught sending a horse to slaughter. Thoroughbred advocates or anyone else wishing to save these horses CANNOT - the killers will NOT sell them to you. WE that are guilty of trying to save that minute number CANNOT line the killers pockets in these situations. They are protecting their sources. Why wouldnt they - they know that they can get these horses for free or dirt cheap and the profits made are huge in comparison because they know there are those that just want these horses to disappear without getting caught using this disposal method. So, the kill buyer is pretty much holding the cards here and he will take the risks in falsifying documentation to indicate that none of these horses have been on any meds within the past 6 months or on any meds that have life time bans on them. He rolls the dice knowing full well that nobody will be checking. Those supplying the horses know they will not get caught either because the killers will not sell them. So, I ask you - taking into comparison the numbers that DO go to slaughter as opposed to that tiny drop in the bucket that get pulled from kill pens in the course of a year by tb advocates, WHO is really lining the kill buyers pockets here. It seems to me that those supplying these horses in the first place are the most guilty percentage-wise by quite a significant amount. Again, lets look at the big picture here and we can clearly see who exactly is lining whos pockets for the most part. I do get that many tb programs will not purchase horses from the killers and I understand why - they do not want to line the killers pockets and that is their policy and I respect that. IMO, they may not really be looking at the big picture. Again, WHO started the ball rolling towards lining their pockets in the first place - those that put the horses in that position, those that sent them directly to kill AND every single person that ever stepped up INCLUDING many in the industry itself so at the end of the day when a very MINUTE number has a chance to get pulled from a kill pen, I ask you to think about the other 34,000 and WHO really lined the killers pockets on all of those - I am fairly certain it is not those that stepped up to help that minute number that is in addition to that 34,000 that are the biggest contributor here. I can also say that NONE of us like paying the killers to get these horses back BUT maybe put the majority of the onus on those REALLY responsible for that thick lining in the killers pockets because somehow or another, they ended up with them - 34,000 of them - that is a LOT of tb blood money.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:53:50 +0000