Anselm

Anselm was rescued from a kill buyer in California. We were tipped off that he was there and immediately offered to take him. He was emaciated and coughing. His body was scarred from what looked like rope marks where he had been beaten. His legs were covered in scars from being used as a tripping horse in the Mexican rodeo, charreada.

“Charreada is a national sport in its home country. As big in Mexico as the NFL Superbowl is in the United States. This cruel and horrific ‘sport’ has now infiltrated the United States, mostly in the West. There are ten individual competitions in a Charreada, six of which involve horses. Charros (rodeo cowboys) continue to trip horses until they are lame or can no longer run. Horses sustain multiple serious injuries, including broken legs and necks, and spinal damage. Horses who try to escape by jumping over fences or walls are only captured and brought back to the arena for more torture to the cheers of the crowd.

The horses are not typically privately owned, but instead leased as they do not normally survive. One source of horses for leasing to charro rodeos are feedlots. Kill buyers employed by slaughterhouses lease out horses for the charreada circuit to make extra money from them before selling the horses to horse slaughter plants. Before horse tripping was banned in California, a source at a Riverside feedlot reported they leased 25 horses per weekend to two different charro rodeos. Upon their return, approximately 2 to 5 horses per week displayed injuries serious enough that the animals were sent to slaughter. For each horse that went to slaughter, another from the feedlot replaced them on the charro circuit.

(Fund for Horses)

We named him Anselm, but when we saw how tiny and delicate he was after quarantine, we nicknamed him Little Boy. It is no coincidence that we named a mare, who had also survived the torment of being a tripping horse, Little Girl. The rodeo cowboys prefer smaller, light-weight horses as they are easier to bring down.

He was bit cheeky at first, and food obsessed as many starved horses are if they’ve been in a situation where they don’t know when their next meal is coming. No one could fault him for that.

He was rescued with Adeline, with whom he became very bonded. The two started out together in Malibu. When they moved up to Oregon, no matter how much space we gave them, they stayed close to the fence. Anselm really didn’t want the wild life and was more comfortable in a pair than a big herd. Sweet Addie has since passed away, but Anselm remains in Oregon, where he hangs out with a small group of hard keepers, who get extra feedings to keep up their weight. He prefers a quiet existence, but spring fever has been known to hit him… we’ve seen him romancing Dani California.

#skydoganselm

 Mustangs & Burros Need your help

In addition to supporting our work by donating, becoming a patron on Patreon, or sponsoring a Skydog, there are several important pieces of legislation to protect American equines currently moving through Congress. It only takes a few minutes to contact your Rep and Senators and urge them to support these bills:

Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act of 2023 (H.R. 3475 in the House / S.2307 in the Senate). This bill will shut down the slaughter pipeline that sends some 20,000 American horses and donkeys to savagely monstrous deaths in foreign slaughterhouses every year.

The Wild Horse & Burro Protection Act of 2023 (H. R. 3656) This bill will prohibit the use of helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft in the management of wild mustangs and burros on public lands, and require a report on humane alternatives to current management practices.

Ejiao Act of 2023 (H.R. 6021). To ​​ban the sale or transportation of ejiao, a gelatin made from boiling donkey skins, or products containing ejiao in interstate or foreign commerce, which brutally kills millions of donkeys primarily for beauty products and Chinese medicine.

You can Contact Members of Congress by calling the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121‬, submitting contact forms on their individual websites, or sending one email to all three simultaneously at www.democracy.io

See our How to Help menu for other actions to ban zebra hunting at US canned hunt ranches, stop production of Premarin & other PMU drugs, and defund the Adoption Incentive Program.