History 101- Heroes of Horse Slaughter

Ten years ago, if you talked about horse slaughter online as being a bad thing, you were asking for absolutely nothing but a fight. Name-calling, personal insults, stereotyped, cussed -- you name it. It wasn't any fun, that's for sure, and it really helped to have someone to call in so that you would not be the only person on an entire forum. One post from you would incite 5 insulting, hateful responses.

Now people are actually popular because they are against horse slaughter. It's great! But, what allowed us to speak out? What empowered our bravery, to bring something so dark out into the open and force people into the light? It was the Heroes of Horse Rescue, and I probably won't name all of them in everyone's opinion, but here goes... Enzo Giobbe & Stacie Mayer. They formed Horse Aid, the biggest, and most wealthiest horse rescue organization in U. S. history. Their extensive efforts still exceed any existing organizations to date, with the exception of the truly big orgs like the HSUS & the SPCA. Horse Aid did not accept donations, but they could afford to visit and expose PMU farms and farmers. They didn't kiss anyone's butt like the PMU rescuers have to, so that they can secure foals for resale to the American horse rescue market. Horse Aid had the most information about everything, it seemed. They revealed the money link between Premarin manufacturer Wyeth-Ayerst, the Democratic party, and the FDA, which has successfully prevented any manufacture of any generic Premarin, which explains why there aren't any. They revealed that horses were shipped live to Japan, by boat, for slaughter. They have volunteers in other countries- that's plural for those of you who missed it. Although they didn't accept donations, they would advertise on their website for other rescues that did take (& have an urgent need for) donations. I could go on, but Horse Aid did not.

Next came a woman named Anne, who wrote under the pen name of Screedweaver. I have never witnessed a more talented writer in all my life. She hit the nail on the head every time she wove her screed, and she knew everything. That's the key to fighting slaughter- knowing everything. Because there is no excuse for it (horse slaughter for human consumption), knowing that fact is crucial. If we don't know, we can't argue. If we can't argue, we can't win for the horses. I wish I still had some of Screed's screeds, but Screedweaver's time was 8 years ago, and I've lost her precious words over time. Screedweaver was driven off of the Internet by pro-slaughter Internet stalkers.

Yes, trying to help horses could be dangerous back in those days. It may have been a rumor, but it was said that someone attending an auction in California was attacked, beaten and suffered a broken back when she raised too much of a ruckus over a horse that a killer bought. Considering the blatant hostility on the Internet back in those days when anyone spoke against horse slaughter, stories like the one above were at least somewhat believable.

Next was Cathleen Doyle. Cathleen was the name, face, and voice behind Proposition 6, a California law that disallowed horses to be transported across state lines for the purpose of slaughter. Horse rescues still abound in Cali, but the theft rate has gone down, they do not have any problems with unwanted horses, and they do have one of the highest horse population rates in the country. Why do people keep listening to the AAEP?

As effective as she was, her efforts could not be reproduced in any other state. Getting Prop 6 passed cost over a million dollars. Cathleen had a tap into the film industry. Others in other states did not have that advantage. At Dallas Crown, the horse slaughter plant in Kaufman, Texas, the manager told the Dallas Morning News that their industry was worried that more states would pass Prop 6-type measures, but that never happened. People like T. Boone Pickens weren't aware of our issues as yet.

Roberta Stone is another one who defiantly qualifies as a Hero of Horse Rescue. Roberta was the first to really dig deep into the annals of horse slaughter history. She's a real freak for statistics, and spastics cannot be denied (although some idiots still do). Roberta was extremely vocal and all over the Internet. She's highly intelligent, an excellent writer, had actually seen horses get slaughtered, and cows, and her sharing of knowledge deeply increased the power our side had. But still nobody had put all their knowledge in one place. Most websites had information about slaughter, but nobody was really learning anything new about it. Roberta shared facts of past and present. We were armed, but we didn't know exactly who to shoot at, so to speak.

And then along came Mary. Mary Nash already had a history of being an activist long before she joined our cause. Mary had a good education, so she was articulate and could write well. She was smart enough to check her facts and get them straight before speaking, a lesson many of you 'newbies' really need to learn. For instance, if you write to your congressman and say that slaughter should be stopped because 200,000 horses were slaughtered in the U.S. last year, you are going to look like an idiot because the information you say you believe is so grossly wrong. So where does that leave your opinion?

Mary Nash knew that somewhere, someone was accountable. She knew to follow the money trail. She had the time and resources to do that, so she did. And, she created a website that contained all of her letters, and their incriminating responses. The dark side was exposed more deeply than it had ever been before, and suddenly we understood that somewhere, one or two people were in control of this or that aspect of horse slaughter. Mary never thought she was better than anyone else fighting the cause. She knew she could learn from them, and she gave credit where credit was due. I know this because Mary told me that after I had gone down to the Tarrant County Court House and put the slaughter reports on the USESR website, naming the owner of the horses and the shipper, showing how many arrived unable to walk, etc., that she went to the Kaufman County Courthouse and did the same thing for her website. She thanked me for the good idea.

Cancer took Mary away from us. I hope we can still make the large amount of headway that we made during her few short years with us. Education is the key. Learn the facts, use your spell checker, and don't let them give you the run-around. Speak out every chance you get, to your friends, your family, your congressional representatives on the state and federal level.

Thanks to these ladies, and others like them, we are just one step away from getting horse slaughter outlawed in the United States