American Racehorse Is Coming Home After 11th-Hour Rescue From Korean Slaughterhouse
A filthy, malnourished former racehorse was dramatically rescued by PETA investigators just yards away from and moments before she was to enter the largest horse slaughterhouse in South Korea. The mare will be flown back home to the U.S. for the new year.
PETA’s team stopped the truck she was on and obtained the American Thoroughbred racehorse My Elusive Dream, sired by El Prado, North America’s leading stud in 2002. PETA has arranged for her to live out her years in comfort and safety at Adena Springs, the Florida farm of racetrack conglomerate The Stronach Group, which owned El Prado.
My Elusive Dream, who is now 16 years old, was bred by Cynthia Phipps and raced 10 times before being used for breeding. She delivered five foals before Korean buyers purchased her at the Keeneland January auction in 2018 and went on to have three additional foals in South Korea.
“A life of peace, safety, and comfort will no longer be an elusive dream for this horse, but the road to the slaughterhouse remains well-trodden by thousands of others in South Korea,”
says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo.
“PETA thanks The Stronach Group for giving her a home and urges the American racing industry to stop selling horses to South Korea until the slaughter ends.”
A 2019 PETA investigation uncovered the widespread slaughter of American Thoroughbred racehorses and their offspring in South Korea. The Korean racing industry aggressively imports and breeds American horses—buying them from U.S. auction houses—only to send them to slaughter when they’re no longer deemed useful.
PETA’s footage revealed horses trembling as they arrived at the slaughterhouse, many covered with mud and burrs, some bleeding, and one fresh off the track with a bandage on his leg from an injury sustained in a race just three days prior.
The scenes that followed were unbearable. The acts of the workers and violations of the Korean Animal Protection Act resulted in multiple criminal charges and convictions.
Video footage shows a 3-year-old filly being struck repeatedly in the face and two mares being beaten for almost three minutes straight. Following the investigation, The Stronach Group joined PETA in calling for a ban on the sale of North American Thoroughbreds to South Korean racing interests.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.
Suzanne Ashton, Founder of Everything Horse (Est, 2012), has a BA Hons in Marketing Management and a Diploma in Equine Science. Suzanne has ridden and owned horses all her life and has twelve years of experience in marketing, writing, design, SEO, and website creation.