How 5,000 horses a year secretly go to slaughter

It's even possible to locate a couple which specialise in bison, water buffalo, ostrich and emu.

But as for horses? Not a word. And, make no mistake, it's not because horses aren't slaughtered for meat.

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Rather, the fact of the matter is that in 21st century Britain the subject of killing horses remains a taboo that even central Government would rather not advertise.

The reality, however, as I discovered during an investigation into the trade last year, is that more than 5,000 horses are butchered for human consumption annually in the UK.

They will meet their maker in much the same way as beef cattle do. First, a bullet, designed to expand on impact, is fired from a rifle at point-blank range into the brain.

Next, they are lifted up by their hind legs, their throats are cut and their blood drained. Then the process of dismemberment, disembowelling and flaying swings into action.

The slaughtermen work quickly and efficiently using razor sharp knives to cut through sinew and bone until what passes down the line is a carcass of meat - just like any other animal killed to be eaten.

But the trouble is, to the British at least, the horse isn't just any other animal.

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Hence the fact that the Government refuses to advertise the location of horse abattoirs and hence the fact that the abattoirs themselves are none to keen on publicising this particular speciality.

Whenever they have in the past, they have found themselves targeted by animal rights activists who have fought an aggressive campaign to have the trade outlawed.

Their main complaint is that it provides an easy way for the racing industry to dispose of unwanted animals which have failed to make the grade in the sport - the cast-offs, the activists claim, of an industry that purposefully over-produces over-bred horses in the desperate search for winners.

Andrew Tyler, the director of Animal Aid, the country's largest animal rights group, claims that every year more than 2,000 unwanted racehorses are killed for meat in this way.

"The figures we have assembled suggest that there are 17,000 thoroughbreds born each year and only about 5,000 make it to race," he says.

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"The industry is breeding horses that are fast but weak and as a result have to over-produce because of the high levels of horses that will be physically unsuitable.

"They then either sell this 'waste' to abattoirs or, if the horses have taken drugs that make them unsuitable to enter the human food chain, shoot them in their yards."

While those figures are disputed by the racing industry, there is "evidence" to back up what he says.

Turner's, an abattoir close to the Cheshire town of Nantwich, is known to butcher horses and a couple of years back was visited by an undercover reporter.

He spoke to owner Derek Turner, who is said to have told him that the abattoir killed "2,000 to 3,000" racehorses a year. When he was later confronted with this figure, it was revised to 700.

While these horses might come direct from the racing yards, equally they might be bought at knock-down prices by middlemen, by horsetraders.

If they can, they will attempt to treat any physical problems with the horse - be it lameness or whatever - and sell them on for a profit. Failing that, they will sell the horse for meat.

Interestingly, the abattoirs insist that the service they provide actually prevents horses from suffering abuse.

The argument goes like this. Calling in a vet to kill, remove and dispose of a horse will cost upwards of £200. Selling a horse for meat will get the owner £300 - so long as the horse is in a relatively good condition.

"Slaughter underpins welfare because an animal with a commercial value will be treated better than one which has none," explains Stephen Potter, who runs an abattoir in Taunton which every week slaughters 50 horses.

"People would be more inclined to dispose of their animal improperly if it was going to cost them something.

"A lot of the people who bring their horses here to be killed are distraught at losing a creature they might have known all its life and they want to know it will be despatched cleanly and quickly."

One thing on which everyone agrees is that if horses have to be slaughtered for meat it is better that they die in Britain than abroad.

Every year some 100,000 horses are transported in horrific conditions-across the Continent from Eastern Europe so that they can be butchered fresh to satisfy the tastes of dinners in Belgium, Italy and France.

In Britain, the export of live horses for meat is banned. Instead, horses and ponies destined for the human food chain are killed and butchered here. They are then exported on the hook - not the hoof.

"We currently source about 5 per cent of our meat from Britain," a Paris horsemeat dealer told me. "This figure amounts to around 89 tons of meat a year, but it is growing.

"Imports from Belgium, South America, the U.S. and Canada are all strong, but Britain is catching up."