The four-minute film reveals in heart-breaking detail, the final journey of horses and ponies to the abattoir. The footage includes their deaths and subsequent butchering.
Following Panorama’s exposé on ‘The Dark Side of Horse Racing’, which featured some undercover footage captured by Animal Aid, the racing authorities in Britain and Ireland were quick to try and shift the blame to the slaughterhouse and the government vets, present at the abattoir.
However, this does not address the reason why so many horses are being sent to slaughter nor the root of the problem: unregulated and speculative breeding of horses.
Animal Aid’s footage shows that a huge variety of equines are presented for slaughter – young thoroughbreds discarded by the racing industry, ponies from managed feral herds and other tiny young ponies. Whatever their story, there is money to be made from their meat.
Animal Aid has released more footage in order to refocus attention on the very heart of the problem, in order to get government intervention and action. It is disingenuous for those with the power to make real change to blame the slaughterhouse or the government vets. Instead, the government should examine the number of horses being bred, the trade in horses and the numbers of horses from Britain and Ireland for whom there is no home, no funding and no hope.
Warning: upsetting content. Viewer discretion advised.
