Every year, thousands of American horses — pets, racehorses, workhorses, rodeo horses — are bought at auctions and shipped to Canada and Mexico to be slaughtered for meat. In 2024 alone, nearly 3,000 were sent to Canada and over 17,000 to Mexico. They are transported for up to 28 hours in trailers without food or water, often in extreme temperatures. Some do not survive the journey.

Those that do face a slaughter process that veterinary experts describe as inherently cruel. Horses are difficult to stun. They spook easily. They move. One horse on video required nine shots before dying. Two hundred and two veterinarians signed a letter calling for this to end.

Eighty-three percent of Americans oppose slaughtering horses for food. This is not a partisan issue — the legislation to stop it, the Save America's Forgotten Equines Act, has strong bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. A bipartisan amendment prohibiting the transport of horses to slaughterhouses has already passed the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

The votes are there. The public is there. The only thing missing is the will to act.

We're calling on Congress to pass the SAFE Act immediately — permanently banning the slaughter of American horses for human consumption and ending the export of horses to Canada and Mexico for that purpose.