Thoroughbred horse meat on the restaurant tables of Europe is a sad fact of life, say top names in the racing business.
As revealed in last week's Herald on Sunday, horses, including many bred for racing but found unsuitable, are sent to Gore abattoir Clover Export for export to Europe. The slaughterhouse is Belgian-owned. New Zealand exports $2.27 million of the meat annually.
Top breeder Sir Patrick Hogan of Cambridge Stud (CS) reacted to the story with pragmatism and sadness. "I wouldn't really like to see a CS brand on horses to be eaten," he said.
"You certainly wouldn't get me to eat any horse meat. I guess at the end of the day, the main thing is that they are slaughtered humanely. If they are, then that's pretty acceptable to me."
Sir Patrick supported Wellingtonian Stephanie Davidson's idea of re-homing retired horses, but said there was a large number of such animals requiring a lot of land and resources. "But at the end of the day somebody had to look after the horse."
