I agree with your post regarding business practices. However, in most areas the total cost of euthanasia and disposal (don’t forget, the 1200 lb. carcass needs to be hauled away or buried) is much higher. It might be $150 for the vet visit, but it might be $200-500 to pay someone to come and haul away/dispose of the dead horse. Even if you bury it–assuming that you are allowed to in your neck of the woods, thats a big (and gruesome) job that takes all afternoon and requires the use of a backhoe (probably about $200/day to rent). I’ve never euthanized a horse and disposed of it for less than $350, and I’m in an area where it is generally less expensive for things like that. I was once charged over $300 just for euthanasia by a high end vet clinic–they charged me for an “exam” on a horse that I had asked them to simply come and euthanize. So the economic difference between sending a horse to auction vs. euthanizing might be closer to, say, $800. I’m not defending the choice, but I do know that there are a lot of lesson barns to whom $800 is a lot of money.
I think a lot of things changed when slaughter houses became less prevalent and then moved out of the country entirely. I feel like the worst part of the slaughter pipeline is the transportation. In the 70s and 80s when I was in Massachusetts, the owner of the barn where I kept my horse had a network of buddies around New England and the eastern seaboard. They all kept their eyes open for each other’s markets and particular needs. At that time if there was no market for a horse it went to the glue factory which may or may not have been an actual glue factory but was definitely local and required no special horrible transportation.
This was a business and that was good and bad for the horses. A lot of effort went into matching up horses and riders – my sister sold a horse that went to Florida where he lived happily despite minor stiffness and lameness. The buyer basically wanted a pasture ornament/grandchild pony ride. There wasn’t Internet at that time nor would that guy in Florida have found or paid to transport a horse in Massachusetts – the network had trips up and down the coast all the time. But there were also wasn’t a magical retirement farm so if the effort did not produce results, it was the glue factory.
Now I’m on the West Coast and I know a wrangler/pack trip organizer who I can tell used to operate under the same business model. In its absence, he dumps horses at auction. Most of the people I knew from the East Coast are retired or have passed away so I don’t know what is being done out there now. I don’t think that it was a horrible situation and I don’t think it has been replaced by something that is ethically AND economically feasible.
Yeah, I guess making $110 bucks on your old lesson horse who taught your up downers for the last decade makes better business sense than spending $350 to put him down.
If a lesson barn can’t spend $350 to put down and have a lesson horse hauled off, what are they going to do when one colics and needs to be oiled? Needs stitches? I guess Dobbin can either suffer and die or get well on his own because they don’t have that in their wallet and it’s nobody’s right to condemn them.
I have rescued before and I do vote with my feet and my wallet. I make darn sure that people I know who sell their older beginner safe horse to that nice lesson barn down the road know exactly what will happen when he goes lame.
It is $350 to put a horse down and haul the corpse away where you live. It could be significantly more in other areas, states, or countries.
Horses that need medical intervention for colic or need stitches must have that treatment. Often that ‘treatment’ is a shot of Banamine, or a little Super Glue done by the trainer. If they belong to lesson programs with plenty watching eyes they usually get something as that returns them to use. If not the local humane association can be notified.
Horses with something like severe colic or a fracture that require surgery are usually termed ‘not a candidate’ and put down by the vet that finally sees them.
Do I know of scumb*gs that don’t call the vet and just give Dobbin a shot and haul him to ‘that sale’ ? Yes, I think we all know those creeps exist.
In the UK or at least in parts of it, the local hunt will come to put the horse down, and the meat is then fed to hounds. It sounds sort of gruesome on the one hand, but it is also a humane end without suffering and a pragmatic if unsentimental use of the carcass.
My point is we keep making excuses for these lesson programs. First the cost to dispose of a horse was $150 then someone said it was $350, now you are saying it is significantly more. I guess we will keep saying the cost of euthanizing a horse is higher and higher until we can all agree that dumping a lame or old lesson horse at an auction is a smart business decision. While we expect individual horse owners to have responsibility and talk on this forum dozens of times about euthanasia for unwanted horses yet we don’t seem to expect anything of the sort with lesson barns because they are one sick horse away from the entire program collapsing.
The actual cost isn’t the point. That’s just distracting from the real point. The point is that it can be done and could be built into the cost of doing business.
What? Someone who has been lied to repeatedly is unduly unhappy (“sour grapes”) because… being lied to a bunch is acceptable and we blame victims here? With all due respect, I think it would make more sense to direct your criticism to the liars, rather than the lyee.
Back on topic: OP, there are some barns where this is normal practice and some where it is not. And IME, that doesn’t correlate with expensive or bare-bones programs.
If the BO is going to do this, however, I don’t think a kiddo barn worker should be let in on the secret and made to carry the moral burden of it. Not fair to give folks “none of the power and all of the responsibility,” as is the case where the teen barn worker has no say in how the horses are treated, but is expected to carry on with the lie.
She wasn’t lied to. She’s apparently upset on behalf of someone else. Fine. There is still no point to this thread except wanting to hear how of course she is the saint of all horsemen and people who do business differently are of course the scum of the earth. Every thread she created was trying to stalk down the buyer of a horse so she could harass that person.
Every lesson horse I ever rode came from auctions of varying quality. Sending a horse to one is not, despite what 80000 people on Facebook would have you believe, a death sentence and imminent torture. My own personal horse came from a dealer who is known to be questionable. He certainly is living the good life.
Is it the norm in the business outside big money circles to move horses around through methods like this when they’re no longer of use for whatever reason? Yes, it is. There are not dozens of people lining up to provide a nice cushy retirement gig.
In what job, ever, is a teen worker ever given license to have a say in how the business is run? Even if you know about it, having a say in it isn’t the determining factor in whether you should run your mouth about it.
Fair enough. Now I do remember the OP and the other thread whose punchline was: Horsemen are dishonest, period. But let me ask you a rhetorical victim about my clueless friend (who is also above reproach because cancer), so that you reach the conclusion I have.
Yeah, that’s the end run around just stating one’s opinion, eh?
It sounds as though you only have exposure to this one barn. Maybe after you’ve been around in the horse world longer, you will gain a more encouraging, happier feeling about horse world. I’m sorry you have started out with such a bad impression, because it’s not the norm.
Agreed, which was my point. If someone wanted to be responsible they could most definitely build in the cost of euthanasia when their lesson horses reach the end of their useful life. However, several posters feel that any price is too high for a lesson barn. I hope they don’t feel the same way about their personal horses. Yes, I am judging.
As for the poster who argues about auction houses, it depends. If the horse is in good condition, looks sound, and the owners are there to both ride the horse outside and in the ring then,and there are a lot of people in attendance, it can get a home. Someone who cared about their horse’s future would set a reserve above meat prices and stick around to talk about/ride their horse.
A horse that is not actually ridden through the sale (unless it’s a baby) stands a %0 chance of going anywhere but meat. You can pay someone to get on but people often don’t.
People do use auctions as places to shop for horses.
The kill buyer is ALWAYS THERE. He really loves the end of summer, when camps and lesson barns dispose of their horses to avoid a winter feed bill.
You seem well versed in the running of riding schools.
As long as participants in the horse industry won’t allow government regulation of the riding school industry, and won’t police it themselves… what we have is what you get.
Whining about the inhumanity of something you then turn a blind eye to and allow to continue is self-appeasing but hypocritical.
Beware the old saying, “When you point one finger at someone else there are three fingers pointing back at you.”
A hypothetical question we should all ponder is…
What is the plan of action for all the unwanted school horses in your area? How much will it cost, and how will it be paid for?
In Germany, we were told that the horses went to “a farm on the Mosel” when they died.
We learned the truth later, and it kept childhood memories warm. When we were old enough we knew the truth.
We also unknowingly ate the bunnies we played with, aka hassenpfeffer. Rabbit stew.
Sometimes its easier.
I think the issue here is the “dirt bag” person that sells lesson horses to the killers. But sharing that info with children would be even worse!!
Selling horses at auction --/-- selling to killers. Those are not synonymous.
At the auctions I have been to you really need to have papers on the horse, needs to be under 10 and have someone riding it in the ring, would be very helpful if it was flashy or gaited (being an arabian or a TB is an auto death sentence) and it still needs a reserve price above meat. Anything else goes straight to the killers. Honestly sometimes the killer isn’t even there, the auctioneer has a made up number and just buys any horse under a certain price. The killer is usually separate from the various dealers who might want to make some money flipping a horse at the next sale in two weeks. If the horse is purchased from a person in the stands = home. Someone on the floor = killer. It’s not that all horses end up in the killer’s trailer, but it’s foolish to say that it doesn’t happen on a weekly basis and there are clear things you can do to prevent that if you don’t want that fate for your horse but want to sell it at an auction.
Many people do use auctions as places to pick up project horses, camp horses, trail horses etc, but if you want to sell and want your horse to have a slightly better chance be realistic and take some precautions. If you just want to unload a mouth then don’t worry about it.
First part of your sentence, exactly what I said. Yes, it happens, but anyone claiming auction=slaughter is either ignorant or–as is the case with many of the dealers who buy and resell–using emotional blackmail to manipulate people into buying generally unsuitable horses.
With regards to the second part, at this point, I’m just going to quote myself from another thread:
I agree, I’d rather people that have no business breeding stopped, or give their elderly horses away, or that lesson barns euthanize. Would I sell or give a horse to a person who had dropped their pasture puffs off at the salebarn? No more likely then if they were a lesson barn making “business decisions” Yet we’ve heard right here that any dollar amount is too much to spend if you can’t afford to feed your horse. Private owners or businesses. Personally I’m glad that at least there’s an end of the road at the auction. I’ve seen horses that starved to death in barren fields because the road was out of view and the owners didn’t want to take the horse to the sale. I just think that places like lesson barns should plan for the eventual retirement of their horses in some way or another besides dropping it off at a sale.
