What's wrong with eating horsemeat?

We get a lot of freebies in the Derby Telegraph office - including a package from Derbyshire chocolatier Thornton's for the reporters every Christmas, and a reader in his 80s who regularly sends the editor homemade pork pies.

In fact, it's a running joke that our hardworking team will eat pretty much anything to fuel their zeal for news, and as the days are often long and unsociable, the office microwave can regularly be heard pinging as it heats up another readymeal.

I have a colleague who is particularly unscrupulous when it comes to his diet and five-day old Chinese takeaway leftovers are not uncommon. Earlier this week he was musing over the number of horsemeat readymeals he has no doubt unwittingly eaten, which of course turning to a general discussion on equines as food.

"What's so wrong with horsemeat anyway?" my colleague asked. "It's just another mammal."



My horse - not for use in lasagne!



Clearly as a horse owner and vegetarian I am bound to have a somewhat special and sentimental interest in equines. And I do understand that when it comes to matters of life and death, horses are no more or less likely to feel pain or distress than other mammals like sheep or cows.

The main reason the horsemeat scandal has caused such a storm in the news is that it has found its way into products that ought to have been made from beef, so consumers have been eating it unwillingly. But when it comes to eating horses there are huge welfare issues to consider too. Horsemeat is all too often the product of horse suffering.

In this country we have a strict set of guidelines that govern our farming and slaughter practices, meaning that meat produced in the UK is generally of an (arguably) reasonably high welfare standard. But as horses are not routinely farmed for meat in the UK, those that end up on our dinner tables are likely to have been reared and slaughtered abroad, where the welfare guidelines are different.

For a number of years I have been a supporter of an equine charity called World Horse Welfare, previously the International League for the Protection of Horses, which has spent decades campaigning against the long-distance transportation of horses across Europe for slaughter.

Snuggly in his rug - how a horse should be treated

The charity estimates that around 65,000 horses and ponies suffer needlessly every year because of the regular practice of transporting live animals across long-distances to their deaths. The charity says that may of them suffer injuries, dehydration, exposure to diseases and exhaustion as a result of these journeys, which it argues are needless.

It claims there are a huge number of licenced horse slaughterhouses in Europe and cites one commonly used transport route that passes 180 such slaughterhouses that could take the horses.

The charity says: "Every year, 65,000 stressed horses are packed into trucks and driven long distances across Europe to slaughter. Exhausted, diseased, injured and travelling for days over thousands of miles: these horses are desperate for food, water and rest. We need you to help us to convince the European Commission to introduce a maximum journey limit of nine to 12 hours, ending the torment caused by these relentless journeys."

A former colleague of mine who now works for the Daily Telegraph recently went on a trip to Poland with World Horse Welfare to see first-hand how horses are traded for slaughter. I spoke to her on the phone a couple of days ago and she said she'd found the whole experience incredibly moving and it had made her re-think her entire attitude towards meat production. Here's a link to her report - it really is well worth a read.

Anyone who knows horses will know that they are generous, gentle and highly-intelligent animals, and their physiology makes them unsuitable to withstand long journeys in cramped lorries with no rest or water. Their long, bony limbs, with no muscle below the knee, are built for speed but make them hugely vulnerable to injury during transportation. And their flighty, highly strung natures put them at risk of suffering greatly from stress.

My mum's horse Wave is ready for her close-up!

When you pass a horsebox on the roads in this country, know that the horses within are being transported in luxury conditions, in individual stalls with padded partitions, a ready supply of hay, regular rest stops and trussed up to the nines in protected gear including padded boots running from above their knees to their hooves, padded headgear, rugs and tailguards.

The horses being transported for slaughter in Europe enjoy no such comforts.

World Horse Welfare wants to see the introduction of shorter, more regulated journey times, and rests for equines upon entering the EU. It is also calling for a minimum space allowance to reflect the size of horses, ponies and donkeys, improved partitions so that animals are no longer crammed together, and detailed journey plans.

Our history has been built from the backs of horses. They have carried us into wars, ploughed our fields and transported us for hundreds of years. Let's afford them a bit more consideration and not turn a blind eye to the suffering that lies behind the horsemeat scandal.