The Coggins Test all horse owners are required to perform annually in order to transport horses just about anyplace anymore is apparently not required on slaughter-bound horses, which makes it much faster to get them out of the yard and on the road, but also presents a biosecurity issue for every place they travel through, since Equine Infectious Anemia is incurable and biting insects the principal vector. This may have been acceptable in an era when horses weren’t hauled far to slaughter, but now we are in an era of interstate and international transport of large numbers of unvaccinated and untested animals. This is surely a threat to any responsible horse owner and this law could be easily changed though the slaughter buyers would have to bear the costs (as everyone else already does) when purchasing and transporting a horse for any purpose.

This could get them back where they belong, in freedom!