Horses
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994:
Jean R. Strothenke, town jus-
tice for Schroon, New York, on April
20 fined horse hauler David A. Carper, of
Frank Carper & Sons, $11,100 for ille-
gally taking 40 horses to slaughter in a
double-decked trailer, lacking individual
stalls and insulation. He was caught on
January 27, en route from New Jersey to
Canada, when the truck broke down in a
snowstorm. The fine was by far the
toughest since New York adopted legisla-
tion to cover horse transport in 1980.
Previous fines have reportedly averaged
around $100 per truck. Strothenke levied
the fine per horse. “It’s going to put me
out of business,” complained Frank
Carper, whose firm has reputedly special-
ized in late-night horse hauling. The fine
came two weeks before the Humane
Society of the U.S. shocked Louisville on
the eve of the Kentucky Derby by pre-
senting a dossier of similar cases to the
media, including evidence of horses
being hauled in double-decked trucks for
as long as 32 hours without food or water.
HSUS estimates that about 10% to 15% of
the 250,000 horses slaughtered in the U.S.
each year are thoroughbreds.
The Sam Houston Race Park,
the first Class 1 parimutual horse track in
Texas, opened on April 29 in Houston.
The proprietors predict average daily
attendance of 12,000, betting $133 apiece
for a daily turnover of $1.6 million.
About 1,200 horses are to be stabled at the
track, which expects to employ 1,700
people. Similar tracks are under construc-
tion near Dallas and San Antonio.
A University of Wisconsin
study says horses are the state’s fastest
growing farm industry, with capital cur-
rently worth $655 million––more than the
captial value of the Wisconsin hog and
poultry industries.
