OLD DAME DANCING

Noir was found in a slaughter pen, waiting—although he didn’t know it—to be transported to Canada or Mexico where it is still legal to slaughter horses for food. A volunteer from New England Equine Rescue (NEER) spotted the black gelding. He was clearly bright. He had obviously been highly trained. And he also had sarcoids on his ear, sheath and chest. The presence of the sarcoids (cancerous growths) suggests the reason he was in the slaughter pen. Sarcoids are expensive to treat, difficult to cure and sometimes fatal. That an animal with sarcoids could even be considered as a food source, provides a peephole into that nasty world where horses are killed to provide “gourmet” meat to places on the globe where horsemeat is considered a delicacy.

NEER volunteers patrol the slaughter pens on bailout missions, looking for horses to save and hauling them into the rescue network. The black gelding was one of the lucky ones. Mary, his rescuer, called him The Trick Horse when she discovered that someone had taught him to bow, to beg and to rear on command and balance on his hind legs. That owner may have fallen on hard times and perhaps sold the horse to a new and less caring owner. His story will probably never be known. Horses in slaughter pens are acquired without disclosure, and fraud and misrepresentation are common. Read the rest of this entry »