Foals under a year old killed for meat DUMPED BY RACING INDUSTRY IN HUNT FOR WINNER

STOIC volunteers remove debris from the charred wreckage of a historical site in northern Ukraine.

The House of Culture in the village of Ivanivka, used for weddings and other events, was heavily damaged in a Russian attack over the weekend. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin of following in Hitler’s footsteps.

His wife Olena Zelenska said: “It’s the war of destruction.”

Meanwhile, fears for the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant deepened as its remaining main

THOROUGHBRED foals produced for the horse-racing industry are being slaughtered for human consumption when they are less than one year old, new figures have revealed.

They were among more than 3,000 racehorses killed in Irish meat factories since 2020, according to information from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

New data containing the ages of thoroughbreds slaughtered in the past two-and-a-half years shows that 151 were just one year old, while another 288 were under three.

Four foals were slaughtered before reaching 12 months of age. external power line was cut off at the weekend. And Russian forces continued their shelling of the southern port city of Mykolaiv – hitting three hospitals, two schools and a museum.

The average life expectancy of a racehorse is 25 to 30 years.

However, the figures reveal that only 210 or seven per cent of the thoroughbreds slaughtered were over 20. More than half (1,534) were under six and nearly one in three (839) was under four.

Passports

The statistics relate to thoroughbreds with passports and do not include thousands of others slaughtered for consumption.

Animal Aid claims the large number of thoroughbreds ending up in meat factories is linked to “huge and unregulated overproduction” of equines.

“The crux of the problem is that the racing industries have failed to limit the numbers of horses produced,” said Fiona Pereira, the group’s campaign manager.

“Quite simply, this wealthy industry is breeding horses in the hope of finding winners, whilst failing to look after many of those it doesn’t want.

“Tragically, the end of the road for a number of these poor souls is the abattoir and, until the government makes the racing industry accountable, it seems that many unwanted horses will suffer this fate.”

Footage obtained by Animal Aid featured in a BBC Panorama documentary last year, which revealed that Irish racehorses were being transported to abattoirs in the UK for slaughter against animal welfare guidelines.

It also alleged that contaminated horse meat was entering the human food chain as a result of microchips being fraudulently swapped in animals that were earmarked for slaughter.

Most Irish horse carcasses are exported to continental Europe, where they are typically eaten as burgers, steaks or roasts.

Asked why foals and young thoroughbreds would end up in meat factories, a spokesman for Horse Racing Ireland explained that certain defects rendered horses unsuitable for racing.