September 18, 2003

Dear Congressman Lloyd Doggett:

I am writing to ask that you give consideration to an important concern. Few
issues define the differences between the present Republican leadership and
the majority of the people quite as well as this issue. A small group of people,
including my friend, Mary Nash, were able to stop a bill in the last Texas
legislative session. This Republican bill attempted to make legal what is now
and has been an ILLEGAL 40 million dollar industry in Texas! Please join Martin
Frost and 75 other congressmen as cosponsor to HR857, the American Horse
Slaughter Prevention Act.

A poll of Texas voters conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling in May, 2003
concluded that 72% of Texans oppose live horse slaughter for human consumption.

Since California voters outlawed horse slaughter in 1998, reports of horse
theft to the California Bureau of Livestock Identification have dropped by 34%.

The French and Belgian owners of Dallas Crown in Kaufman, Tx and Beltex in
Fort Worth want you to believe the horses they slaughter are old, sick,
crippled, or crazy. That is not true. They slaughter beautiful, young, fat healthy
horses. Indeed, wealthy French and Belgian diners would not pay $15 a pound to
eat old sick horses.

The slaughter horses are harvested by killer-buyers from as far away as
Florida and Minnesota. They drive from auction to auction picking up any horse at
a good price then carry them to Fort Worth and Kaufman in double deck trailers
designed for cattle where the horses are forced to stand in bent positions
for up to 28 hours.

The horses are forced into a kill chute where a captive bolt shatters the
scull, supposedly rendering the animal unconscious. The horse is then strung up
by one hind leg, his throat is slit, and his beating heart pumps his blood
into a bucket. Although this is the same live slaughter method used for cattle
and hogs, it does not work well for horses because horses flail around in the
kill chute making it difficult to administer the captive bolt. My friend Mary
Nash has seen undercover film of this process and says the bolt may be
discharged 3 and 4 times before the horse stops struggling.

We don't eat horses in this country. Why should we allow French and Belgians
to kill and eat our horses? The European Union import tariff on American
beef is 20%, but the tariff on horsemeat is only 5.1%. Shouldn't the U.S.
equalize this disparity with an export tariff on horsemeat? The U.S. export tariff
on horsemeat is zero.

Please join Congressman Frost as a cosponsor to the American Horse Slaughter
Prevention Act.

Sincerely,

Susan (Musti) Roller
1707 W. 31st. St.
Austin, TX 78703-1829
(512) 450-0765