Friday, September 26, 2008
HORSE SLAUGHTER: Ending the Madness of Equicide: Part 1
By Marion Altieri
Thirty years ago, in the fall of 1978, when racing was more about sport and less about dollars, the great Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Whittingham brought the wonderful racehorse Exceller to New York in search of an Eclipse Award title. To do that he would need to defeat not one but two Triple Crown champions.
Born the year a horse named Secretariat put thoroughbred racing on the front covers of Time and Newsweek, Exceller, a son of Vaguely Noble from Bald Eagle’s mare, the champion Too Bald, shipped into Belmont Park after having won the San Juan Capistrano, Hollywood Invitational, Hollywood Gold Cup and, under a steadying 130 pounds, the Sunset Handicap, Grade 1 races all.
But the time had come to show the Eastern racing establishment what he could do by coming to the right coast for two races in which the five-year-old bay colt would take on Seattle Slew and Affirmed in the storied Woodward and Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes.
In the five-horse Woodward, the speed of Seattle Slew was simply too dominating. Slew, always taking the lead from the start, set realistic fractions shadowed by Exceller throughout, but 10 furlongs in 2:00-flat was simply too much speed to overcome. Slew won by four lengths comfortably.
However, Whittingham figured that the Jockey Club’s mile and a half would be a great equalizer, and that the addition of the speedy Affirmed to keep Slew honest, would level the playing field.
Calling fractions of :45 1/5 and 1:09 2/5 going a mile and a half punishing doesn’t begin to tell the tale. While this suicidal pace was on, and having little choice, the great Shoemaker bided his time on Exceller, at one point 22 lengths behind the leader, perhaps even farther back between calls.
Approaching Belmont’s sweeping far turn, Shoemaker made his move and Exceller cut into Seattle Slew’s lead with every stride. In a little over two furlongs, Slew’s advantage had evaporated. Exceller took a half length lead as the duo straightened away into the long Belmont straight.
Tiring from his unexpectedly maniacal duel with Affirmed, Seattle Slew drifted out in the final furlong but, incredibly, began to re-rally, bringing everyone who wasn’t already standing to their feet. Slew was so wide that no one in the building had a clue who had won the race and, after an interminable delay, it was official, Exceller by a nose.
In defeat Triple Crown champion Seattle Slew had run the race of his life, becoming an even bigger star by erasing any lingering doubts as to his true greatness. Exceller, the courageous winner of this celebrated marathon in a worthy 2:27 1/5 at sloppy Belmont Park, had become the back-story, a footnote to Jockey Club Gold Cup history. To view the race in it's entirety, click here.
Considering that Exceller eventually would retire as one of the sport’s first equine millionaires with earnings of almost $1.7 million, winning nearly half his 33 lifetime starts, he wasn’t a very lucky individual.
Indeed, Exceller never would win a major championship and retired after finishing third in his career finale, the G1 Century Handicap, in the April following his Gold Cup triumph. But who could have known that his troubles were only beginning.
Thirty years later, in May of this year, the air was thick with an uneasy sense coming from the podium. James J. Hickey, Jr., President of the American Horse Council, was addressing the august body of equine lawyers and journalists assembled at the University of Kentucky Equine Law Seminar in Lexington.
The participants, over 250 industry professionals, sat cheek-to-jowl patiently awaiting Hickey’s take on a number of concerns facing the industry and the AHC’s role in it. Reading from a text, he spent about 25 minutes talking about the law, lobbying, and loopholes, until a solitary questioner rose his hand.
“What is the American Horse Council’s stand on horse slaughter?”
After a lengthy pause, Hickey stated flatly that the American Horse Council is neutral on the subject. He explained it had to be that way because the organization’s members came down on both sides of the issue. Then, without hesitation or further explanation, Hickey hastily thanked his audience for their attention and the program was over.
The American Horse Council is one of the more visible organizations representing all groups whose lives are tethered to horses, whether those horses be Standardbreds, Quarter Horses, Paints or the Thoroughbred, the most visible of all breeds. On balance, the AHC does endeavor to be a force for positive change.
Another organization professing to have the welfare of horses to justify their existence is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Known as PETA, they surface opportunistically and while the whole world is watching, this year outside the gates of Pimlico and Belmont Park following the tragic accident that befell the filly Eight Belles, who broke down while pulling up after finishing second in Big Brown’s Kentucky Derby.
Horse slaughter, too, is a huge problem for racing and the sport is under attack from overenthusiastic groups like PETA. PETA’s modus operandi is to encourage well meaning converts to carry signs and speak out helter skelter against the racing industry while depending on these zealots for their existence. But while purporting to save animals, PETA has a vested economic interest in maintaining the status quo. According to its 2006 tax return, PETA raised nearly $30 million, their officers receiving $5 million in compensation.
Worse is the official PETA policy that contradicts the marketing of its brand image to the public, namely the killing of feral stray dogs and cats. PETA believes and convinces its members that these creatures are better off dead at the hand of a PETA official than in the homes of a new owner that “would abuse the animal” anyway, or worse. It‘s a practice they don‘t openly advertise.
PETA, whose executive director earns $500,000 annually, does important work and makes a positive difference but remains a thorn in the side of the horse racing industry. Their stated mission is to shut down Thoroughbred racing and the industry would do well not to underestimate PETA’s determination and ability to sway the American public.
Equicide, defined here as the slaughter of equines for money, is still practiced in this country on a de facto basis. While the slaughter of horses has been banned since 2007, the practice is enabled by people who sell their unwanted horses to the killers who then van them across the border to Canadian and Mexican slaughterhouses.
Every day, horses, burros and donkeys are crammed into trucks, hauled across the border where they’re shot in the face--stunned a “penetrating captive bolt”-- until their necks are slit while their hearts still beat. They then are strung up by one hoof until they bleed out.
The cruel practice of shipping American equines to foreign countries to be butchered is a problem that 70 percent of Americans believe is wrong and want abolished. “Our 10.5 million members, that’s one out of every 30 Americans, demand this practice be stopped. They want to see the slaughter end,” said Nancy Perry, Vice President of Government Affairs, Humane Society of the United States.
Horses are slaughtered for many reasons all coming down to the same thing: money. First to benefit are middlemen who buy the unwanted horses at auction and arrange for them shipped to foreign countries where they’re butchered for eventual sale. Horse meat sells for $20 a pound in France. A good draft horse can bring a stunning price because there’s a lot more meat on their bones. Horses are being punished for the crime of being alive at the wrong time, in the wrong place.
Last year, 301 Paint horses were sold to killer-buyers in a rigged auction at Stephenville, Texas. “Rigged” auctions allow only killer-buyer bidders into the building. Hearing about the incident and learning that 12 more Paints were to be sold the following day, country music legend Willie Nelson attended the auction and adopted the 12 horses on the spot, retiring them to his Texas farm.
“The killers are buying more horses now than when the plants in the U.S. were open,” Nelson told HRI. “My family and I have been working with the Animal Welfare Institute to outlaw the practice of horse slaughter for the last seven years. But every five minutes we fail to act, an American horse is slaughtered in Mexico or Canada.”
One such place is the city-owned slaughterhouse in Juarez, Mexico, literally a stone’s throw from El Paso, Texas, making the job of killer-buyers easier. “The continued legality of killer-buyers is a predatory, opportunistic and foreign-driven business that we should not allow to operate on our soil,” Perry added.
Part 2 of HORSE SLAUGHTER: Ending the Madness of Equicide
Written by Marion Altieri
Edited by: John Pricci
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