Sanctuary, Not Slaughterhouse: Activists Help Retired NY Racehorses Find a Home

A handful of former racehorses who used to be a part of the State University of New York at Cobleskill's Equine Studies Program are headed to a safer place, thanks to the work of Equine Advocates, a New York-based rescue organization.

Earlier this year, SUNY Cobleskill made plans to ship three of its school horses, used for teaching students the finer points of equine management, to an auction in Massachusetts. The problem is, so-called "unwanted horses" sold at auction far too often find themselves being shipped outside of U.S. borders, directly to a slaughterhouse, where they are killed, butchered, and sold overseas. Sadly, a lot of those slaughtered horses are former racing horses — it's a part of the seedy side of the horse racing industry that breeders would rather you not think about.

When Equine Advocates learned that SUNY Cobleskill was putting these three horses on the auction block, with who knows what kind of fate facing them, their response was quick and, probably, expensive. They bought all three horses from the college and found them new homes, where they can finally enjoy retirement in dignity.

I'm not certain how much SUNY Cobleskill needed Equine Advocates to pony up to secure a good future for these three thoroughbreds, but I do know it would be nice if we didn't have to worry about retired racehorses ending up on a buffet in Europe. It would be nice if there were a legislative solution so Equine Advocates wouldn't need to worry about scraping together the cash to make sure that institutions like SUNY Cobleskill do the right thing.

There is a legislative solution that would help, or at least there was. In 2009, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan introduced the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act, which would have made it illegal to sell or buy horses for human consumption. Conyers' bill was referred to subcommittee, where it languished. It's time for some enterprising and animal-friendly Congressperson to bring it back and see it through to completion.

The SUNY Cobleskill horses — Timothy Murphy, Honor Mountain, and Major Deegan — did their jobs ... twice actually. On the racecourse, they brought in some pretty good money for their owners: Timothy Murphy won close to $49,000 in prize money during his career; Honor Mountain won $41,000 or so during his career; and Major Deegan, the most commercially successful horse of the bunch, won $92,911 on the racecourse. After that, they served hundreds of enterprising students looking for career working with horses.

They deserve better than what SUNY Cobleskill was going to hand them, and Equine Advocates deserves a pat on the back for making it happen.

Photo credit: Cindy Funk