“Unwanted horses” within the domestic equine population have been determined by someone to be no longer needed or useful, or their owners are no longer interested in or capable of providing care for them physically or financially. Many unwanted horses will be sent to slaughter, euthanatized, or simply abandoned and left to die. Fortunate ones find new homes or jobs when their physical condition or temperament allows.

Unwanted horses range from being essentially normal, healthy horses of varying ages and breeds to horses with some type of disability or infirmity, horses that are unattractive, horses that fail to meet their owners’ expectations for their intended use (e.g., athletic ability), horses with non-life-threatening diseases, horses that have behavioral problems, or horses that are truly dangerous.

To my knowledge, there are no dependable demographics on unwanted horses. For example, ex-racehorses are often singled out as examples of unwanted horses when their racing careers end and they are unsuitable for breeding or other athletic endeavors. But how many of the 50,000-70,000 horses slaughtered last year in the U.S. and Canada were once racehorses? What is the average age and sex of these horses? What caused them to be unwanted? Answers to questions such as these need to be investigated so we can understand the problem and potentially find long-term solutions.

To their credit, various equine welfare groups, breed organizations, and benevolent equine welfare advocates and horse owners have made an effort to provide care for unwanted horses. These efforts, along with widespread efforts to inform the public about the unwanted horse’s plight and a demand for horses by buyers most likely accounts for the 82% decrease in the number of horses sent to slaughter over the past five to 10 years. The capacity of retirement farms, rescue farms, and sanctuaries is currently unknown, but despite their noble efforts, the number of unwanted horses far exceeds the resources currently available. Well-meaning volunteers can become overburdened with unwanted horses, at times to the detriment of those horses. There simply are not enough volunteers, funding, or homes for all of the unwanted horses