08/15/2025
Thank you for this Vera, well said!
What is Rescue? — We all see posts of skinny, beat up horses at a killpen with fundraising pleas to donate, so the horse doesn’t ship to slaughter. Or, we see fundraising pleas to buy the entire truckload of 30 horses that will ship to slaughter unless $50,000 are fundraised. As a result the definition of rescue has become these “life or death” kinds of operations. People give frantically because they don’t want to be the reason these poor horses end up being slaughtered.
But is that “rescue”? Of course these horses are in a desperate situation, they are treated roughly and are beat up. They deserve better. No question. However, the actual slaughter shippers are shipping their contracted quota no matter how many truckloads of horses are fundraised for. If he has a contract calling for 100 horses, he will ship 100 horses. The truckload of horses that were saved are replaced with another truckload of horses. That load of horses the donating public doesn’t see. Even though the total number of horses shipped to slaughter in Mexico or Canada have declined over the past few years, data shows that the specific shippers where most of these horses are bought from, have actually increased their slaughter shipments. One Texas operation doubled its shipping numbers two years ago and are continuing to ship in mass numbers.
So what is Rescue? In the minds of many of the donating public only rescuing from slaughter or buying horses at auctions to prevent them from shipping to slaughter constitutes Rescue. We disagree with that, as do 80-90% of all nonprofit horse rescues.
Last week, we learned of a weanling c**t that a breeder was giving away for free because he wasn’t breeding stallion material. While discussing the situation with a supporter, she stated, “this is not rescue”.
When a breeder who is sick and knows that he will die wants us to take his 15 remaining horses, that were unhandled, but were always fed well and look great, we were told by donors, “this is not rescue, they aren’t skinny”.
Many times, horse owners find themselves in a situation where they lost their job or are going through a divorce or are overhorsed, contact us to take their horses via owner relinquishment. Often we try to provide horse owners with temporary financial support to keep their horses at home, especially in a temporary crisis. “That’s not rescue. Those owners ought to be ashamed of themselves, I would never give my horse away.”
Often we are contacted by law enforcement agencies where they had to seize Arabian horses and we take those horses in. When this happens we are not allowed to post photos of the horse for fundraising purposes or to keep followers in the loop. We have even been told that law enforcement seizures are not rescue because surely we get government funds for this. No, we don’t, there isn’t a magic fund that pays for the feeding and rehabilitation of those horses.
Like us, 80-90% of all nonprofit horse rescues take horses in via owner relinquishment and law enforcement seizures. Because we are a breed specific horse rescue, at times when we see an Arabian horse at a low end auction or a loose horse auction, we try to intercept that horse, but that’s less 10% of our intake. We have even purchased a horse before from a killpen, but we don’t engage in dramatic life or slaughter fundraising tactics. When we have done this, it’s to help a specific horse that we have seen at a prior auction or when we know the history of that horse.
So can we agree on Rescue Definition? 80-90% of all American nonprofit horse rescues agree that rescue entails horse owner support and law enforcement support. This kind of rescue work is worth supporting. It is way less dramatic than the “will ship to slaughter” fundraisers, but this kind of work, especially owner support, prevents horses from ending up at auctions and killpens in the first place.
