PETA Global 2018 Issue 1

A Thoroughbred born in Kentucky has a 50% chance of ending up cut into pieces and served on a dinner plate in Europe. PETA has exposed – and is ending – this “career path” that takes as many as 10,000 horses a year from US racetracks to slaughterhouses to butcher shops, usually when they’re still young. Horses who don’t win – or whose bodies break down because they’re forced to run when they should be recuperating from injury – disappear from tracks by the thousands. Many of them end up hanging on meat hooks. PETA’s Gamble for Horses Pays Off

Coming Home: © Kip Malone | Gray Man/Royale with Speed: © Kip Malone | Valediction: © Leigh Vogel/PETA | Slot machine: © iStock.com/Bet_Noire

To address this cruelty, PETA persuaded racing officials to implement the first-ever industry-supported retirement program, the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance. Then, it came up with an innovative high-tech plan to make sure that the alliance has the funds that it needs in order to keep helping horses. PETA’s idea? A pop-up screen on betting terminals that asks bettors to donate instantly to Thoroughbred retirement every time they cash a winning ticket. PETA presented the idea to representatives of the Stronach Group, which owns many of the biggest racetracks in America, and they loved it! Software was developed, tested, and perfected – and now the concept has been brought to high-tech life. It premiered at the Breeders’ Cup races in November, and it’s being expanded to tracks across the country. Horses Saved by PETA PETA rescued Royale With Speed, grandson of Triple Crown winner Secretariat, directly from the back of a small, open truck, where he was crammed in with 32 other horses for a 36-hour journey in below-freezing weather. The plan was to transport them 1,100 miles – without any breaks, water, or food. They were headed for a ghastly slaughterhouse, where eyewitness video shows that nearly half of them survived the first shot to the head with a captive-bolt gun – and had to be shot

again and again before finally collapsing. Royale was renamed Gray Man and lives with a PETA member.

Coming Home PETA rescued Coming Home after she was purchased for $200 by a meat buyer at an auction. She was just hours from being trucked to a slaughterhouse. Now called Little Winner, she went from depressed to jaunty and lives on the same beautiful ranch as Gray Man. Valediction during its landmark investigation of drug use in horse racing. Both animals were lame, with fractures and swollen joints, and if the organization hadn’t rescued them, they would have been sold for meat at auction or been at risk of dying from untreated injuries. Now, they’re living happily ever after with other horses on farms where they’re free to run – but only when they want to. Take Action Now US residents, please ask your legislators to support the Safeguard American Food Exports Act of 2017, H.R. 113/S. 1706, which would prevent horse slaughter in the US and end the transport of American horses to foreign slaughterhouses. Charlie’s Quest and Valediction PETA found Charlie’s Quest (aka “Charlie”) and

SAVED LittleWinner and GrayMan

14 A STABLE FUTURE