Buried deep in President Barack Obama's 244-page budget proposal is this gem: a reprieve for America's horses. The new budget plan includes a request for Congress to reinstitute a prohibition on the funding of U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors at horse slaughter plants, which would effectively put the kibosh on budding plans to resume slaughtering horses on U.S. soil. Translation? The Obama administration wants horse slaughter to stay illegal in the U.S.

A similar spending prohibition was implemented in 2005, but it was struck down in 2011. And now several companies are trying to reopen horse slaughterhouses in New Mexico and other Western states.

This defunding measure would be an invaluable stopgap to prevent horses from being slaughtered in this country while Congress debates the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act, which would not only outlaw horse slaughter in the U.S. but also close the loophole that currently allows horses to be cruelly shipped to Mexico and Canada for slaughter. This bill must pass or American horses will continue to die—even if it's not on our own soil. 

What You Can Do

Please contact your congressional representatives and urge them to support this budget measure. And to protect horses in the long term and prevent them from being shipped over the border to slaughter, please also urge them to support the SAFE Act.

You've got to act now because on Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the agriculture appropriations bill for fiscal year 2013, meaning that it will have to decide whether to continue to use taxpayer dollars to fund equine slaughter inspections. Last year, horse slaughter once again became a possibility in the U.S. after the government approved federal funds for inspections for the first time since 2006. But this year, Rep. Jim Moran from Virginia introduced an amendment—which the House House Appropriations Committee approved—prohibiting funds from being spent on horse slaughter inspections. Now Congress must decide whether to allow horses to be shot in the head and strung up by one leg before having their throats slit so that people can profit from the sale of their flesh.

Moran's amendment would get us one step closer to ending horse slaughter, but there is still a huge loophole. Horse-flesh dealers could still send horses to Canada or Mexico to be slaughtered, as they did during the years when no equine slaughterhouses were operating in the U.S. In addition to a painful and terrifying death, a PETA investigation revealed that horses were crammed into transport trucks and sent on grueling journeys of more than 1,000 miles in subfreezing conditions during which time they were never given food or water or a chance to get out and stretch their legs.

The Moran amendment echoes the feelings of the 80 percent of Americans who do not believe that horses should be slaughtered for their flesh, but in order to close the loophole, Congress must also pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011, which states that horses may not be shipped to slaughter outside the country. Please contact your members of Congress today to urge them to support this crucial legislation.

Through her work on The Biggest Loser, Jillian Michaels is accustomed to saving lives. But for one horse, her help arrived just hours before he would have been sent on a journey to become hamburger.

From the Winner's Circle to the Kill Pen

During a PETA investigation of horse slaughter, in which horses are taken from a meat buyer to a Canadian slaughterhouse, our investigators discovered ex-racehorse Royale With Speed packed into a "kill pen." A grandson of renowned Triple Crown winner Secretariat, Royale With Speed's racing days were over, and our investigators stood witness as he was sold for slaughter for $350. He was dehydrated and running a fever of 103.7 degrees Fahrenheit, and his lymph nodes were so swollen that they later burst and oozed pus through the skin.

Speedy Save for Royale With Speed

We called the wonderful PETA supporter who cares for another of our rescued thoroughbreds, Coming Home, and she agreed immediately to give Royale With Speed a home on her ranch. Jillian stepped up to buy the horse and cover his transportation costs, and together, we were able to save him from enduring a 36-hour journey in subfreezing temperatures aboard a cramped transport truck—with no food or water—that would have ended at a slaughterhouse.

After weeks of intensive care, Royale With Speed, now renamed Gray Man, has fully recovered. He spends his days lolling on the grass and romping with his new friend Coming Home—who also has a new name, Little Winner.

What You Can Do

Tens of thousands of horses are shipped to slaughter every year. Jillian has voiced her support for ending horse slaughter to Congress. Please join her.

For those of you who haven't heard of him, Gordon Ramsay runs a restaurant and hosts a TV show in England, where celebrity chefs are worshipped as a form of minor deity. Despite having only 5 TV channels for the entire country, the Brits have more cooking shows even than they have antiques shows, and they have the highest number of celebrity chefs per capita in the entire world. So in England, Gordon Ramsay is a kind of a big deal. He’s also a cold-hearted animal hater—which is where PETA UK comes in to the story. Evidently, Mr. Ramsay’s latest stunt has been to encourage British people to eat more horse meat, even going so far as to feature a horse-meat barbeque on his show, The F-Word. PETA UK’s response to his antics was as swift as it was smelly, and the pictures of their horse-manure dump outside Gordon’s restaurant this morning have been going everywhere in the British media. You can check out some of the press coverage here.