with Horse and Hound

March 9, 2013

Horse Slaughter Likely to Resume in U.S.

Horse processing is likely to resume in the U.S. after six years without the availability of domestic slaughtering facilities. The last horse slaughtering plant in the U.S. closed in 2007 when Congress forbad the USDA from inspecting horse meat for human consumption. Since then, horses destined for European and other foreign food markets have been shipped to Canada and Mexico for slaughter. Now Valley Meat Company in California expects to open, in Roswell, New Mexico, the first horse processing plant since the closures. USDA inspection and approval is required before slaughtering can take place in any processing plant. In 2011, four years after Congress banned inspections, they removed their ban after the General Accounting Office— Congress’s objective and apolitical investigative arm—bluntly reported that the unintended consequence of Congress’s intrusion into the horse slaughter debate had actually harmed the welfare of the unwanted horse population. Since the ban was lifted there has been talk in several states about opening such plants. Last fall, Valley Meat Company sued the USDA for inaction on their request for inspections, and the agency is now expected to approve their request. According to a New York Times article, the Obama administration is urging Congress to reinstate the ban. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has petitioned the Agriculture Department and the FDA to delay approval of any horse slaughter facilities because of concerns about the presence of drugs that might have been administered to the horses. Posted March 9, 2013
Read More
wexford.gate.mulliins

The Horsemen of Wexford

wexford.gate.mulliinsLillian Doyle, five-times ladies point-to-point champion, out with the Wexford from a meet at her father's pub / Noel Mullins photo

What better place to end the season than with the Wexford Foxhounds at John Jude Doyle’s Cloch Ban Pub in Clonroche, County Wexford? Inside there is a picture on the wall of Bree Foxhounds Joint-Master Jay Bowe having a drink sitting on his horse beside the bar!

Doyle is a director of The Irish Horse Board and Horse Sport Ireland, and one can see why. He has an infectious enthusiasm about the Irish horse as a breeder, producer, and organiser of schools, shows, and gymkhanas. He has campaigned his Irish Draught mare Cloghbawn Cailin and her filly Cloghbawn Liaght on the show circuit. Doyle’s daughter Lillian won the Ladies Point-to-Point Jockey Championship five times. His uncle Jim Joyce bred Parkhill, evented by the late Col. Ronnie MacMahon, and his track greyhound Temple na Dubh won seven nights in succession in Shelbourne Park!

Master and huntsman Mary Kehoe is gifted as a handler of horses and hounds and has hunted the Wexford Foxhounds for nine seasons and the Bree Foxhounds for the last twenty-three seasons, hunting hounds four days a week. Her sister Muriel whips in to her. Their father Owen was Field Master of the Island and hunted the Bree. The other whippers-in are Michael Condon, a formidable rider, and former jockey Padraig English, who won three races on the great steeplechaser Danoli. All of them hunt across country on a simple mathematical principle: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and whatever obstacle is on that line is crossed regardless of complexity! But they can because they produce and ride only the very best hunt horses.

Read More