TEXANS FOR HORSES

HR 857, The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, currently has 191 co-sponosors. With 220 the bill would not have to be voted on in committee -- it is in three! This has never happened on an animal bill before. What a statement that would make.

Only 5 of 32 Texas Representatives in Washington have co-sponsored HR 857. In our opinion, this is a disgrace, as it implies a total lack of disregard of the wishes of their constituents. Or does it? Have we done our part in letting them know we want them to support this bill? Let's leave them in no doubt. Please complete and sign a special petition we have prepared to send to our Texas Representatives. Return it to us, and we will batch them and send them to Washington. You can find it on our site under Action Alerts!, Texans 4 Horses, or by clicking on this link: http://www.fund4horses.org/info.php?id=40.

ILLINOIS

Cavel International only have a few finishing touches to add to their horse slaughter plant 60 miles north of Chicago in DeKalb, Illinois. They anticipate opening in April, and expect to butcher up to 100 horses a week.

A bill pending in Springfield, however, would close down the slaughterhouse before the first horses have even shown up. SB1921, which would ban the slaughter of horses in Illinois for human consumption, was approved by the Senate last year. An amended bill, backed by the state's five biggest racetracks, could be voted on in the House as early as Thursday.

If you are an Illinois resident, please complete and sign a petition asking your State Representative and State Senator to please vote "YES" on SB1921. You will find it on our site under Action Alert!, Slaughter: Illinois, or by clicking on http://www.fund4horses.org/info.php?id=14.

Originally we asked that all petitions signed and completed by the kids be sent to us so we could fax them to Washington. However, some parents have been hesitant about this because it requires a full address in order to be processed. We have therefore added a separate set of instructions detailing how to send the petition directly to Congress. You can find it on our site under Action Alerts!, Kids 4 Horses, or by clicking on http://www.fund4horses.org/info.php?id=87.

Vivian Farrell, President of the Fund for Horses will be hosting Go Vegan Texas!, Monday, March 29, 2004 at 11:00 a.m. CST. Her guests will be Sinikka Crosland, Director of TRACS in Canada, and Dr. Ray Kallasomi who appeared on Dateline NBC. Topic : Update PMU Horses. Please tune in. That's KPFT 90.1 FM Houston & 89.5 Galveston, or listen to the show live on the internet at http://www.kpft.org/.

Jennifer Hughes has written to us asking that we tell you about an historic ride planned this summer in support of HR 857. She is calling for all horse and riders from coast to coast to join in a re-enactment of the Pony Express to deliver a message to the President and Congress that we must ban horse slaughter this year. Interested parties please call Jennifer at 518-851-9452.

Please cross-post this newsletter to everyone. Also, please print out copies of the petitions, and pass them around to anyone you think may be interested. We are the only voice our horses have. Right now there are hundreds and thousands of them standing around in meatpens, some of them pregnant but being butchered anyway.