'Ex-race horses should be slaughtered for meat'

Horseworld manager Jerry Watkins says hundreds of thoroughbred race horses are sold for the European meat market every year. As long as they're killed humanely, he sees nothing wrong with it.

Horses that have finished their racing career should be sold for horsemeat, says the welfare manager of Horseworld.

Around 70 per cent of retired British racehorses are slaughtered and sold to the European market each year, says Jerry Watkins, Horseworld’s welfare manager. 

Racer Kappa Hill is training to be a show jumper

The Bristol based charity takes in up to 12 retired racehorses per year and says there isn’t enough space to re-home and re-train any more.“If you can’t keep them, the kindest thing is to have them put down humanely and sell them for meat to recover the costs,” he said.   

It typically costs £400 to have a horse put down and its body disposed of.

• Jerry, a former army vet, says: “I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with an animal going on for human consumption.

“If an animal has got to a stage where it’s old or geriatric, where it’s arthritic or it has some other condition going on, which isn’t uncommon in these horses, then I think there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Racehorses are bred to have thinner, lighter bones and often develop joint problems in later life.

Many begin racing as two-year-olds, before their bones have fully developed. Their career is usually over by the age of 12, although they can live into their mid 30s.

Jerry said: “They’ve got to go somewhere and there’s more horses out there than there are spaces in the horse welfare organisations.”

The charity re-homes up to 350 horses per year. Its annual running costs are more than £1 million and it relies entirely on public donations.