Animal lovers in the US are in shock after a prize-winning horse was lured from its luxury stable in Florida, and slaughtered for its meat.
The New York Times says the gifted American equestrian, Debbie Stephens, arrived at her stables on the weekend to be told by a barn worker that one of her giant show jumpers, Phedra, was missing.
The report says Debbie went searching the surrounding paddocks, where she found the slain horse, which had been butchered “so professionally” that authorities suspect it was “carried out by an expert butcher for meat.”
“He had been filleted,” Debbie told the Times.
“The slices were so deliberate and so well done that the moment you saw it: This was a professional.”
She fears that meat from the horse has ended up in the lucrative, underground market.
It is illegal in Florida to sell, purchase, distribute, transport or possess horse meat unless it is clearly stamped, marked, or described as “horse meat for human consumption.”
New laws designed to curtail the consumption of horse meat were adopted in 2010, but the Times says some people “are willing to pay top dollar” and the horse was probably targeted because of his size.
