These are horses that would generate millions of dollars for California in any number of ways-feed, supplies, tack, clothing, rides and recreation, vet care, horse shows, trailers and vehicle sales, etc., and the taxes on these products. The horse meat industry prefers good fat healthy horses. The United States is also the looser from the revenue that slaughtered horses would have generated here. Also Penal Code 597x states that it is unlawful for any person to sell, attempt to sell, load, cause to be loaded, transport, or attempt to transport any live horse, mule, burro, or pony that is disabled, if the animal is to be sold, loaded, or transported for commercial slaughter out of state. However, at this time there is little or no enforcement of these laws, and horses in these conditions are being shipped.
Humane euthanasia is readily available form a vet and can usually be done inexpensively.
If a horse can be loaded into a trailer, it can be taken to a local veterinary hospital and euthanized for a pre-agreed upon nominal fee, and dropped at a render at usually no charge. If it can't make it to a trailer, it can't make it anywhere else. We don't eat our horses. Slaughter is a betrayal of our horses. Nothing about the slaughter of a horse is humane, nor can it be regulated into being humane.