Texas Plains To Paris Plates Is Route For Stolen Horses

DENTON, Texas - Jeannie Young figures that her world-champion palomino mare ended up in a meat counter in France.

That probably was also the fate of the dun mare that Tammie Duffer of Arlington, Texas, bought nearly seven years ago. Duffer traced her stolen mare in February to a Fort Worth slaughterhouse, one of four killing plants in Texas that pay good money for horsemeat on the hoof.

Paul Riggs, who brands horses all across Texas from his farm in Forney, said he hears more and more complaints about thefts from customers.

"Everybody knows someone who has had one or more horses stolen. There are more and more thefts going on all the time," Riggs said.

"I don't like bureaucracy, but something's got to be done. This is Texas. We used to hang horse thieves here."

The horse owners' anger has caught the attention of state legislators who - although no statistics on horse thefts in Texas exist - have decided the problem may be bad enough to merit new regulations.

Slaughterhouses are paying about 45 cents a pound for horses they kill and ship to other countries.

In 1991, the United States exported 48,320 metric tons - 1.06 million pounds - of horsemeat valued at $141.4 million to 15 other nations, most of it for human consumption, according to U.S. Foreign Agriculture Service statistics.

OVERSEAS MARKET

By far the largest customers were Belgium and Luxembourg, which together took 14,500 metric tons for $45.4 million; and France, with 14,000 metric tons valued at $44.9 million. Belgium owns three of the four horse-slaughtering plants in Texas, records show.

Vernon Fritze, manager of Vernon Calhoun Corp., a horse slaughterhouse in Palestine, Texas, said packing plants are being unfairly blamed for the increase in horse thefts.

"The biggest place to get rid of stolen horses is not the packinghouses. The people who steal the horses run off to auction barns in Oklahoma or Missouri or somewhere out of state and sell or trade them," he said. However, he conceded that horses "laundered" through auctions may end up at the slaughterhouses.

The four plants in Texas now keep some records to try to identify horse thieves, he said.

"When a person that is not one of our regular dealers brings a horse in, we get the guy's driver-license number, description of his truck and tag number, and a description of the person as a matter of course," Fritze said.

"We've gone to trial on some of them before. But all they do is slap their wrists and let them go."

Two mares owned by Young were taken in December by thieves who cut the fence, led the horses out and into a trailer and took off. Their haul was worth about $1,000.

One mare cost $20,000 as a filly, became the Palomino World Halter Champion and had been a broodmare for several years. She was carrying her third valuable foal.

"They cut a fence, take a bucket of feed and catch a horse, load it up and they're gone. Four hours later, they're at the slaughterhouse," said Young. "And there's no one to help you."

Neither the Denton County Sheriff's Department nor the Flower Mound Police Department did more than take a report on the theft, she said.

The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association has voted to include brand inspections in its services, but state legislation will be necessary to expand the inspectors' law-enforcement authority to horses.

"What we're really looking for is something affordable for the person who owns the pleasure horse. A system of brand inspection like we have for cattle is one of the more effective things," said state Sen. Steve Carriker.

Legislators are expected to renew bills in the next session of the Legislature to require brands, among other measures designed to help identify stolen horses and the thieves who took them.

KILLED WITHIN FOUR HOURS

The records may not always save an animal but they sometimes could help discover what happened to it, Duffer said. She found that her mare had been stolen one day at midmorning and slaughtered within four hours - and who the seller was - through slaughterhouse records. Although she submitted a police report on the matter, no charges have been filed.

Vivian and Douglas Newton are still searching for a mare stolen less than two weeks ago. The Newtons raise registered paint horses and also operate an equestrian-rehabilitation program for disabled people at their Rocky Top Ranch in Keller, Texas.

One of their broodmares, which was ready to foal, was stolen out of a pasture recently, the only one of about 20 horses in the pasture. Vivian Newton said she is not sure whether the thieves took that mare because she had a bad leg and was easy to catch - or for the foal.

"I keep hearing that there may be a premium on foals, that they are considered special, just like veal," she said. "That's just heartbreaking."

While searching in vain for her mares, Young stood on catwalks at a slaughterhouse every day to check the horses being herded through to be killed.

"I went every single day. Fifteen hundred horses or better a week go through there. They come one at a time or in double-decker cattle trucks. You get to where you recognize drivers and trucks that come in once and twice a week. Some of them come in from Kentucky and Tennessee with walking horses with ribbons in their manes and braided manes and tails.

"The heartbreaker is seeing a slick, shiny horse that's been clipped and well cared for. You know that it is someone's love, waiting to be killed."