by Jay Blackman, Washington Producer
They are some of the most beautiful animals, majestic sleek, and of course fast ... but when their racing days are over, some thoroughbred race horses are a lot of the time, doomed to slaughter for meat at factories in Canada and Mexico.
Correspondent Anne Thompson will introduce you to Suffolk Downs trainer Lorita Lindemann, who is trying to change that, one horse at a time. In her 20 years at the track near Boston, Lindemann is responsible for saving more than one hundred horses from the slaughterhouse. She would sometimes beg, cajole or spend her own money, trying to convince horse owners to allow her to find them better homes. She is also responsible for a Suffolk Down's track policy which bans owners/trainers from allowing horses to be killed for meat.
Lindemann works with a national nonprofit group called CANTER New England http://www.canterusa.org/newengland/ who is trying to change the retirement days for these magnificent horses. The group buys or asks for donations of racehorses and through a lot of rest (months and months of grazing) and some deprogramming turns animals that are used to only going fast and turning left into family pets, show horses or jumpers. By the time the retraining is over, the thoroughbred is tame enough for a child to ride.
Horses that once lived life at full tilt, throttling back to living the good life, saved by the hard work of horse lovers.
