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of what became called the “cavalry.” At the same time, in Greece, horse racing was included in the earliest Olympic games. They also pulled chariots into battle and plows across fields.

      The horse was introduced to the “New World” by Spanish conquistadors in the seventeenth century, where it proliferated on the vast, grassy plains, and became a cowboy’s (and in Argentina, a gaucho’s) best friend and essential partner. Before trains traversed the United States, mail was delivered by Pony Express, people in stagecoaches were drawn cross-country by teams of four and six. Later, horses pulled trolley cars and fire engines. Teamsters and tradesmen transported their goods in horse-drawn wagons, much as the Budweiser Clydesdales pull beer carts for TV commercials today. In time, of course, the horse was replaced: by the train (initially called the “iron horse”), the tractor, the car, and truck.

      The horse performs both essential and romantic tasks. Today, there are horses that pull carriages through New York’s Central Park, others that perform tricks in circuses. There are horses that still help cowboys herd cattle and horses that race around tracks and horses that jump over fences. Polo is an international sport, dating back to ancient India, when a goat’s head frequently was used as a ball. There are police horses and horses on dude ranches and there are ponies for little girls to ride on their birthdays. There also are horses on merry-go-rounds and, over the past century, dozens of horses that were stars in movies and in the international racing circuit. Equestrian clubs, riding competitions, and breed shows are everywhere.

      With this background, it is no surprise that there are organizations, mainly in the United States, determined to halt the killing of wild horses in the American West and Canada for export to Europe as food. A 1996 equine survey counted seven million horses in America, about twenty percent more than a decade earlier. Of those sold at auction, most were “going to Paris,” the local euphemism for the European horse-meat market.

      We know that prehistoric man hunted the horse as a source of meat from cave paintings dating back to the Ice Age showing hunters and their equine prey. In fact, some historians believe the horse was domesticated as a source of food before it was used as a beast of burden. Although the flesh was forbidden by Mosaic law, Joseph raised horses for food during a famine and the Greek historian Herodotus told how horse was boiled and then cooked with ox.

      In more modern times, Marco Polo told of the Mongols draining small but regular quantities of the blood from their mounts as they moved across central Asia, taking milk to make foods of the curd or yogurt type, and drinking mare’s milk as well for sustenance. (See “Blood” section for further discussion.) “First they bring the milk [almost] to the boil,” the early trader and explorer wrote. “At the appropriate moment they skim off the cream that floats on the surface and put it in another vessel to be made into butter, because so long as it remains the milk can not be dried. Then they stand the milk in the sun and leave it to dry. When they are going on an expedition they take about ten pounds of this milk; and every morning they take out about half a pound of it and put it in a small leather flask, shaped like a gourd, with as much water as they please. Then while they ride, the milk in the flask dissolves into a fluid, which they drink. And this is their breakfast.”

      Another early traveler in the east was William de Rubruquis, who published a record of his Remarkable Travels into Tartary and China, 1253, in which he told how the Mongols made kumiss, a fermented liquor. Just as the standing horse milk was about to ferment, it was poured into a large bladder and beaten with “a piece of wood made for that purpose, having a knot at the lower end like a man’s head, which is hollow within; and so soon as they beat it, it begins to boil [froth] like new wine, and to be sour and of a sharp taste; and they beat it in that manner till butter comes. After a man hath taken a draught it leaves a taste behind it like that of almond milk, going down very pleasantly, and intoxicating weak brains, for it is very heady and powerful.” The consumption of horse milk and its byproducts is not so common today, although a weak version of kumiss is drunk in parts of China. (Where the alcoholic strength is at a low two percent, no match even for the feeblest beers.)

      The French, especially Parisians, have eaten horse meat commonly and openly since 1811, when it was decreed legal following a long ban. Today in France, especially in the Camargue in the south where herds of wild horses dashing through water is a photographic cliche, some breeds are raised for meat and as is true of most meat sources, the young—the colts—are preferred for their tenderness. Easily digested, horse meat has fewer calories than beef-ninety-four per hundred milligrams, compared with one-hundred and fifty-six for lean beef.

      To satisfy the market that now includes Japan, thousands of wild horses, donkeys, and mules are killed and butchered in the western United States each year. Oddly, it is an expensive government program that has created, or at least abetted, this industry. The program, managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, is intended to protect wild horses on public lands, where they compete for water and forage with grazing cattle. What this means is that “excess horses” are rounded up and offered to the public for adoption. The government spends more than US$1,000 to collect, vaccinate, brand, and administer the paperwork for each horse and adopters pay US$125 for a healthy horse, as little as $25 for one that is old or lame. The new “parent” agrees to keep the animals for at least one year. Some do, many don’t, most selling them for slaughter eventually, usually receiving $700 apiece. More than 165,000 animals have been rounded up since the program was started in 1982, costing the government over $250 million. A tenth of that sum is considered a good year in the sale of the meat by export to Europe and Japan.

      Sources

      In Europe and Japan, many butcher shops or meat departments in markets offer horse meat matter-of-factly. In other Euro-American regions, it is still stocked in some pet shops, but it is wise to have someone along who can recognize the cuts and freshness.

      Zebra may be purchased on the hoof from rancher Audren Garrett, Rt. 7, Box 388c, Springfield, MO 65802, phone (417) 866-5113 or from Doug Smith, Bear Creek Ranch, phone (210) 367-2320, email <[email protected]>. You’d better have a butcher standing by, along with a very large freezer or plans for a sizeable barbecue.

      From The Plains to the Plate

      BIG HORN, WYOMING—Last year, 85,000 horses met their end in the four horsemeat packing plants left in America. In 1996, these businesses shipped $64 million worth of horsemeat to Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Mexico. The prime candidate for slaughter, say buyers, is a 10-12-year-old well-muscled quarter horse. The hind quarters are chilled and flown to Europe; the front quarters are cooked and minced and sent by boat.

      This is an all-but-invisible trade. Even the United States Department of Agriculture, the government agency responsible for inspecting horsemeat, is stingy with information. Studies and analysis of the industry are practically non-existent. Packing plants are about as open as a frozen oyster. The Central-Nebraska Packing Company of North Platte politely but firmly rejected this reporter’s request to visit it. “With people burning down plants, we don’t make a habit of giving tours,” said the manager. He was referring to an incident in July 1997, when arsonists did $1 million of damage to the Cavel West packing house in Redmond, Oregon, which specialized in horsemeat. A torch-happy group, the Animal Liberation Front, claimed responsibility.

      The Economist, May 23, 1998

      Of the fourteen retail horsemeat butchers still open in Paris, this establishment in the fashionable rue St. Antoine, owned by Jean-Pierre Houssin, has the most traditional façade, including glass paintings and three of the distinctive gilded heads above the shop.

      A mobile horsemeat butcher’s shop does brisk business in a French Provincial town, selling freshly slaughtered steaks and mince.

      So it is not a big business, but it is a medium-sized one that likely will not go away. Some conservationists say it is a billion-dollar industry, a figure that makes people at U.S. slaughterhouses laugh and say, “I wish.”

      “Killed

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