Horse Owners Live in Fear of Black Market Slaughterers

OCALA, Fla.—Mari Pritchard’s voice still trembles as she speaks of the last time she saw her beloved horse, Frosty. She had been terrified by reports on social media of horses being killed in the night in Florida, apparently for meat.

“But it won’t happen here,” she’d reassured herself, after confiding to her mother about her fears.

Then on a horrible day in May 2020, she answered a call at work and heard despair in the voice of a friend who’d been caring for Frosty.

Instantly, she knew.

Gentle, treat-loving Frosty—her companion on long, lazy trail rides—was dead.

When officers from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) arrived at the friend’s farm, they found that the parts of Frosty’s body that could be sold for meat had been removed and taken.

Only horror was left behind.

Horse treats were spilled near an opening that had been cut in the fence of Frosty’s paddock, investigators discovered. The butchers had apparently used them to lure the 9-year-old mare to her death.

After years of living in fear of the black-market butchers, horse owners across Florida are celebrating a recent step toward reining in the problem.

A Manatee County man was convicted in May and sentenced to 10 years in prison, 10 years probation, and $250,000 in restitution for butchering a gelding named Halo in 2019.

Horse enthusiasts around Florida see his punishment as a victory.

But it’s bittersweet, they say, because the threat remains.

Though horse slaughter is illegal in Florida, there isn’t a statewide cooperative effort to investigate those crimes, multiple law enforcement agencies confirmed to The Epoch Times.

And, law enforcement agency spokespersons admitted, it’s unclear just how many horses have been stolen and butchered in the night.

(Excerpt from The Epoch Times.)