Horse Protection Day

Throughout the centuries, equines have carried us on their backs, pulled our carriages, fought in our wars, tilled our fields and traveled miles and miles across our countries.

In the United States, the practice of soring resulted in the passage of the Horse Protection Act of 1970 and various organizations protested against abuses in horse racing and rodeo. In the early twenty-first century, these issues remained in the public eye and new controversies arose, especially about training methods such as Rollkur, problems in the field of endurance riding, stable confinement, and the presence of carriage horses in modern cities such as New York.

Angered by the threats of horse protection association, a slaughterhouse worker in New Mexico released a video in which he shot and killed his own horse. As the killing of one's own horse is legal in the US, he was not convicted. This animal, named "Justice", is now celebrated as a martyr of horse slaughter. This act has aggravated the controversy around slaughter in the US.