A sweet brown horse named Beau is the main reason my daughter, Sarah, walks and expresses joy today. She has a rare genetic disorder and doesn't talk but sings when she rides a horse. (photo is her sister, loving on Romeo, at a Colorado hippotherapy barn) Horses heal our kids, as well as Coloradans currently and increasingly suffering from mental health crises, war veterans with PTSD and prisoners who work with them to never go back behind bars. They serve as companions for recreation in the great Colorado outdoors.

On Feb. 16, at 1:30 p.m. Colorado's Agriculture Committee in the state Legislature gets to decide if Colorado horses who give so much to make our lives better should be granted respect and dignity. Or they can choose to keep sending our horses to be slaughtered across the border where horrific abuses are well documented before packaging them as meat sold in other countries. 

It's an easy choice. We know that slaughter is inhumane, and churning horses into meat goes against American values. Horses are injured in crowded mass transport, abused at foreign facilities by workers without rules or oversight, and endure starvation and neglect for six months in frigid temperatures without shelter, watching their foals die and waiting to die at the hands of strangers who don’t know them or their true worth:

Colorado horses sent to foreign slaughterhouses for human consumption (coloradosun.com)

Note in this story a massive report on what happens to our horses when sent to slaughter.

Temple Grandin concurs that workers are abusive to horses at these slaughter facilities because no one is watching.

On Feb. 16 at 1:30 p.m. this body will hear testimony opposing a great bill from pro-slaughter forces who say we “have to” do this, because no one wants these horses. But we know for a fact this is just not true. 

 The need for horses sent to auction -- many of them are young and sound -- is tremendous, including rescued horses at Colorado State University’s Temple Grandin Equine Center, Medicine Horse, Colorado Equine Therapy, and dozens of other mental health equine centers to assist humans, hippotherapy facilities, and a vast network of sanctuaries that are fighting every week to keep horses out of the slaughter pipeline. 

There is widespread support for this bill across Colorado including in rural areas, and the top equine medical experts do not support sending our horses to feed the slaughter industry.

·      The Grand Junction Sentinel editorial board wrote a recent opinion that reads: “It is concerning that there is a market for Colorado horses to be slaughtered in foreign countries, and we think steps should be taken to stop the exporting of horses for human consumption. The way these horses are transported and slaughtered does seem inhumane to us. Thankfully the market is already shrinking.”

·      The American Veterinary Medical Association last week wrote in its Journal that if the slaughter pipeline remains problematic, “the exportation of American horses across both borders for the sole purpose of slaughter for human consumption must end.” 

Nationwide, last year 16,592 horses were sent to slaughter. Most of these were from the East Coast as former race horses, and only a sliver of that number came from Colorado with its two known kill buyers who have been cited for violations. 

It is obvious that Colorado can and will find a place and a purpose for our horses that are sold at auction and grabbed by kill buyers each year, saving them from pain and cruel neglect.

Horses and people deserve help and hope.

Please sign this petition and note if you are a Coloradan and equine expert or someone who understands the roles horses serve in human health, safety, and wellbeing, and who believe equines deserve a dignified end of life. Let our lawmakers hear from Coloradans who want them to stop paying for a foreign industry that undeservedly turns our equines into meat not fit for Coloradans nor Colorado values.