Like many American horse racing fans I find it to be ironic that the Breeders Cup is being held a stone’s throw from two of the foreign owned horse slaughterhouses operating in the United States. Lone Star Park is definitely doing its part to see to it that this issue gets the attention it is due by allowing the Fund For Horses to pass out information on the efforts to ban horse slaughter in our country.
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association has made its support of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (HR 857) very clear. The American public as well as the United States House of Representatives has also made their support of this bill very apparent. Also, 91 percent of Americans are opposed to horse slaughter and HR 857 has 226 co-sponsors.
You think that it would be law by now. However, one man is blocking the bill from the House floor. That man is Representative Robert Goodlatte. Instead of uniting behind his countrymen in support of this bill, he has chosen to side with foreigners who have a taste for horsemeat.
Horses play a great part in American culture. Thoroughbreds thrill us at the racetrack, our wild mustangs symbolize freedom and power, and horses have aided our soldiers by taking them into the rugged mountains of Afghanistan.
If people like Bob Goodlatte are allowed to have their way, the slaughter of United States horses for human consumption abroad will not only continue, this business will be allowed to expand its operations. Mr. Goodlatte should be ashamed of himself for siding with these people instead of his own.
Duane L. Burright, Jr.