While horse meat is a traditional cuisine in European countries and has been enjoyed by many around the world, some people such as myself prefer to keep our pets off our plates. I understand that many people grew up eating horse meat, as it is cheaper than beef or pork; hence why some scams mixed it in with beef and sell it as just beef. I grew up eating beef and pork, and so it seems normal to picture these animals as meat; as I imagine someone that grew up eating horse would. Horses are easy to travel with/on, are fairly hardy and eat on the way; so they are an economical choice of meat. The meat is also leaner and richer in iron than beef, making it more nutritious. But the fact that horses give back more to you than the other meat animals; horses can do so much for you and yet when they make a mistake, they are taken to the slaughterhouse. 
Racehorses are a great example. The horses withstand the intense training of racing and can bring their owners and riders to fame while loving and trying to please them the whole way. But when they start to loose races or go lame, no second chances are given and instead of putting them up for adoption or down, they sell them to the 'meatman' who comes by after all the races and pays good money to get a horse off an ungrateful owners hands. Even Derby winners aren't safe. Ferdinand, the 1986 Kentucky Derby winner, was sent to slaughter after he was no longer a money making machine to his owners. Cows can not quite bring a person to fame in the same way can they? Chickens? Pigs? Horses should be considered friends and not food. They can build a strong harmony of friendship between humans that is just tossed aside for meat.
Another thing that bothers me about horse slaughter is the inhumane why that the horses are turned into meat. It all starts at the auction house. The horses are transported there and held in 'kill pens' for a few days. 'Kill pens' are over crowed corrals in which sick or injured horses die due to lack of general care. Once the sick horses have died out, the horses are smacked with labels and rounded into an arena where buyers bid for on each horses future. Many 'kill buyers' bid at auctions because it is a cheap place to buy a lot of horses for slaughter. The 'kill buyers' then gather their purchases and squeeze them into stock trailers; which are inhumane transport systems usually used for cows, but horses have a longer neck than cows and because of the low ceilings, the horses often cannot lift their heads or move. The horses spend days in the trailers traveling to the slaughter house with out food or water even when they are transported out of the U.S. border to Mexico or Canada. The U.S. has recently made a law banning horse slaughter in the United States; so the horses just have to endure longer trailer rides to cross the border. Then the horses wait in overcrowded pens until they are herded into a stall where a worker either stabs them in the middle of their neck or spine to paralyze them or shoot them in the head without pain killers or proper sanitation. Sometimes they are bled to death. Often times the horses are not fully dead when they are skinned and hung. What also angers me is that every five minutes a horse is being slaughtered, and with it goes a little girl's dreams. I have always wanted a horse and to see that so many innocent horses are dying for consumption with out a second chance that I could possibly give is heart shattering. Just to save a life from abuse, when the original owners didn't value their horse's life and easily disposed of them, when all I would like is one, just one, to have as a loyal best friend. I believe that if people are going to eat horse meat, they should know where it comes from and that only the truly un-saveable horses should be slaughtered; the ones that if given a second chance wouldn't make it.Another Chance For Horses: Auction Rescue
Horse Slaughter: The Humane Society of the United States
"Upfront" Page 4 "Horse: It's What's for Dinner" May 13, 2013
