Eating horses? Never!

There has been no massive public outcry over the royal suggestion last week that we should consider horses as farm animals and send them to slaughter and eat them.   It’s disappointing to think that the general public may be misled by this statement from Princess Anne and actually believe that the welfare of horses will be improved by farming them.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Eating horsemeat has a cultural taboo in the U.K. and horses are not farm animals.  I remember the horse meat shop in Sheffield which was in existence during the last war and for a while afterwards.   It was on London Road in Sheffield and if my mum and I had to walk that way we crossed over the road so as not even to be near it.  It was a horrific place, as bad to us as seeing humans cut up in to pieces would be.

Apart from this, farming itself is not kind to animals and horses, with their sensitive nature and intelligence, would suffer greatly if they had to enter the food chain.  Horses interact with humans and befriend us, they become our companions and form friendships that last all their lives.

Animal farming is, for the most part, a cruel business.  Rearing animals to send them to be killed so that humans can eat them is a miserable process.   Abbattoirs are ghastly places, the stuff of nightmares.   We do not need to eat animals and the world would have an improved environment if we didn’t do this.   Far more food can be grown with a massive decrease in costs if we take animals out of the feed-the-people process.    We would all be healthier too.

The amount of terror that animals feel when they are transported to an abbatoir is huge.   As they wait their turn to be killed they know what is coming and endure terrible suffering.   If some people have horses who have gone lame and are no longer useful to them, surely it would be better for the well known horse welfare organisations to offer a subsidized scheme to enable them to be humanely put to sleep at home.

Few horse owners would send their equine friends to the knacker’s yard  if they could afford to have them put to sleep by the vet at home.

The royal princess has said that there are too many horses.   The competitive nature of humans leads them to buy and sell horses and get a new one that can run faster and jump higher and win more prizes.   These mean nothing to the poor horse who often goes lame because of the terrible strain on his legs when he’s made to compete and jump fences.   Why do humans desire rosettes and trophies so much?

Horses should be for life, if they go lame or have to be discarded, it would be far better to have them put to sleep at home, without any stress.  No, you will not get money for them if they have a last feed and a quick injection, but it is the best end, and over in seconds, if you can no longer keep the horse.

We keep the horses in the sanctuary for the rest of their natural life.   They do not ever have to run and be ridden and race and win trophies.  Our prize is to know that they are living well and are happy.  Horses are herd animals, they are vegetarians and do not ruin the environment and destroy the planet as do the human species.

Too many horses?  I don’t think so.   Too many humans though?