It’s supposed to be a week of celebration for horse racing, leading up to the Belmont Stakes on Saturday and I’ll Have Another’s bid to become racing’s first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.
All over America, people who barely know horse racing place bets while reading over racing forms — not just for the big race but for races at local tracks as well.
But will they be reading off a racing form or a future dinner menu?
Horse racing is a shady business with a lot of secrets, and one of those secrets that will likely bubble to the surface this week is the return of horse slaughtering houses to the United States.
Horse slaughtering for meat has been part of the cycle of racing for many years, and sometimes it has risen as high up as the Kentucky Derby when 1986 Derby winner Ferdinand was later slaughtered.
Nitro Active, the great grandson of Secretariat, was heading to a slaughterhouse after his last race in December when he was diagnosed with severe arthritis and no longer able to race. He may yet be saved by a rescue group, but many race horses are not.
In 2006, Congress voted to stop the use of federal funds for the inspection of slaughterhouses, which resulted in the closing of such facilities in America.
But last fall, Congress — under pressure because of the lost revenue of an estimated $70 million annually in the business of sending all the horse slaughtering across the border to Canada and Mexico — approved a measure that lifted the ban of federal money for inspection.
According to reports, there are at least a half dozen U.S. plants ready to open and grind up horses — as many as 140,000 a year — and send the horses overseas for meat and profit.
The Humane Society of America has sued to stop the start of such inspections, while PETA, in supporting the practice, said the treatment of horses for slaughter in the United States would be more humane than what takes place in slaughterhouses outside the country.
Beverly Strauss, who runs the Mid-Atlantic Horse Rescue group in Chesapeake City, Md., said while shipping would be less stressful to U.S. plants, “it is still not an acceptable practice and is distasteful in this country because Americans don’t eat horse meat. I don’t know if it would be better in the United States, but it is an emotionally charged issue that the public isn’t aware of.”
So on Saturday, you may be betting a trifecta — or part of three-course meal soon to be processed at a slaughterhouse near you.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
