Horse lover’s project saves retired racers from slaughterhouse

Published today online on Boston.com

Here is the opening excerpt (link to full story at bottom)

GEORGETOWN, Ky. - It all started with a shovel and a pile of manure at Suffolk Downs, circa 1997.

Michael Blowen, the eclectic movie critic of the Boston Globe, was in love with the horses. He wanted to learn everything about them, so that he might cash in more tickets. He begged legendary trainer Carlos Figueroa for a job on the backstretch. Blowen expected to be paid. Figueroa looked shocked.

“You are on scholarship to Figueroa University,” said the man known as the King of the Fairs for his dominance at New England traveling fairs. Figueroa’s first words of wisdom? “Lie, cheat, and steal.”

Blowen shoveled and learned. He owned a claiming horse or two with friends, but he also watched as deadbeat horses were loaded onto the truck to slaughterhouses.

“They smelled death,” he says. “They knew where they were going.”

Their screams haunted him.

So he retired from the newspaper and started rescuing horses, initially for the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation.

“I was at Rockingham, and there was room on the truck to save one more horse,” Blowen remembers. “There was this old horse I wanted and I told Carlos we had a check for $250 for him. But Carlos said no, the horse still had something left in him. So I said, ‘Carlos I’ll give you the check for $250 and then add $500 of my own cash.’ Carlos said OK.”

The horse was driven away and Carlos asked for his cash.

Only there was no cash.

“I said, ‘Carlos, remember: Lie, cheat and steal.’ “

Now the 60-year-old Blowen does nothing but good deeds. In 2002, he moved to Kentucky and founded Old Friends, a nonprofit organization that rescues retired thoroughbreds. He gives them a loving home on a picture-perfect 52-acre farm. It is the only retirement farm in the United States that accepts stallions.

“This place,” says Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron, who lives nearby, “is heaven for horses.”

The formation of Old Friends can be traced to the story of Ferdinand, who won the 1986 Kentucky Derby and was sent to stud in Japan, but was eventually slaughtered there.

The international outcry that ensued helped Blowen and Old Friends make new friends. He persuaded a Kentucky bank to lend him $1 million to buy Dream Chase Farm. His mother-in-law co-signed a loan to help him rescue more thoroughbreds.

So he built the paddocks, pampered the horses, and just as in “Field of Dreams,” people came; some 20,000 horse racing fans visited last year. Unlike other farms - Cigar is stabled just down the road at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington - visitors are encouraged to pet the horses.

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The Horse on the Hill: December 11, 2007

By VIVIAN GRANT

H.R. 503 and S. 311
An Amendment of the Horse Protection Act banning slaughter and export for slaughter

S. 311

We have been pressing as much as we can without making too many enemies to get S.311 voted on before Christmas as promised. We are assured it will happen, and to be on standby for short notice. Why am I not convinced?

There have been no new co-sponsors since early November.

H.R. 503

n the meantime, we are setting appointments and visiting with key members of the U.S. House of Representatives. This has yielded an additional co-sponsor, Rep. Kirsten Gillebrand (NY-20).

Wild Horses
We are also setting appointments to meet with key legislators on both sides of the aisle for the new year to discuss the rapid disappearance of our wild mustangs and burros.

Maybe because we have focused so heavily on the horse slaughter issue and only occasionally the wild horse situation, we have been very surprised by the amount of resistance we are getting. Surprisingly, you can get appointments to talk about horse slaughter (well, our representatives can anyway).

Thanks for the Lobbying
We have been fortunate to have 4-6 lobbyists working for us from August through to these final weeks. What an outstanding job they have all done. Two return in January 2008, and two of the others will work in tandem with them beginning in February.

A big thank you to everyone who donated in support of these fine young men and women, and to Mike, our fearless leader and mentor, we could not do any of it without you.

So we sit and wait, but be ready to act, because it will most likely all happen at a moment’s notice.

NYC to consider ban on horse drawn carriages

MSNBC reports:

NEW YORK - A city councilman wants to ban the horse-drawn carriages that clip-clop around Central Park — a move strongly opposed by the city’s carriage drivers. Queens Councilman Tony Avella said he will introduce a bill next Wednesday calling for a ban.

He and animal rights advocates contend the horses are exposed to cruel conditions and are at risk of injury or death in city traffic.

The move comes just months after a carriage horse died when he became spooked by sidewalk musicians and then darted into traffic.

Animal advocates backing the plan include “Friends of Animals,” who called the move to ban carriages “overdue.”
But the Horse and Carriage Association is lashing back.

The group is fighting to protect its industry and say the city’s 220 licensed carriage horses are in excellent health.
Group spokeswoman Carolyn Daly called Avella an “ill-formed, publicity-seeking opportunist.”

A carriage horse died in September after it was spooked by street musicians and bolted down Central Park South. It was the second such incident in less than two years.

It is not clear how much support Avella’s bill has in the 51-member council. And Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said that the horses are cared for and should remain a New York City fixture.

Source: MSNBC TV, Photograph: Unknown

Also in Tuesday’s Horse, Carriage horse Smoothie killed in New York City

Changes proposed to horse transportation rules

The Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is looking to close a loophole in its regulations on the commercial transport of horses to slaughter facilities.

Current regulations protect horses that are being commercially transported directly to slaughter. A proposed rule in the Nov. 7 Federal Register would amend those regulations to extend protection to horses that are bound for slaughter but delivered first to an assembly point, feedlot, or stockyard.

The USDA-APHIS stated it believes “that equines may be delivered to these intermediate points en route to slaughter for the sole purpose of avoiding compliance with the regulations.”

One reason for the updated regulations is to curb the use of double-deck trailers for the transport of horses. The trailers are currently not allowed to be used to transport horses directly to slaughter facilities. But APHIS noted that it has received numerous reports of truckers using the trailers to transport horses to assembly points, feedlots, or stockyards, and then reloading them onto straight-deck trailers for the final leg of the trip to the slaughtering facility.

The proposed rule came just under two weeks after a double-deck semitrailer carrying 59 horses overturned in northern Illinois. The Oct. 27 incident left 18 horses dead and dozens more injured. As of early November, the driver was reportedly charged with traffic violations and investigators were looking into whether additional charges were warranted.

Meanwhile, legislation was introduced in Illinois shortly after the accident to ban the use of double-deck trailers to transport horses in the state, no matter what the destination. If passed, Illinois would join New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Vermont in outlawing the trailers for transporting horses.

While the AVMA doesn’t have a policy regarding the use of double-deck trailers, the Association was supportive of the phaseout of the trailers for transporting horses to slaughter when APHIS established the transportation regulations in 2001.

The USDA-APHIS will accept comments on the proposed rule until Jan. 7, 2008. To submit comments electronically, visit www.regulations.gov, select Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service from the agency drop-down menu, then click Submit. In the Docket ID column, select APHIS-2006-0168 to submit or view public comments.

Comments may also be submitted via mail to Docket No. APHIS-2006-0168, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3A-03.8, 4700 River Road, Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1238.

To submit comments electronically, visit www.regulations.gov select Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service from the agency drop-down menu, then click submit.

Source: Information from AVMA Website; photograph by Craig Lundgren