Meet The Sisters Saving Spanish Horses From Slaughter
It's been four years since Spain's construction-fueled economy collapsed, leaving 57 percent of young Spaniards out of work. Noisy protesters occupy Madrid's streets every weekend, demanding jobs and an end to punishing austerity.
But there is another, voiceless victim of the country's economic crash: Spanish horses.
They once carried the conquistadores into battle in the Americas. Spanish purebred horses have long been the choice breed for royal equestrians across Europe and for cowboys in Hollywood films. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Spanish construction barons began buying up horses, a status symbol for newly minted millionaires in Spain's heady boom years.
Jos Manuel was one of them. Ten years ago he bought a ranch in eastern Spain and started filling it with so-called PREs (pura raza espaolas), Spanish purebred horses. NPR found him in the classified ads. He's trying to sell his horses now.
"I've got five horses left. I used to have more," he says. "I was never a horse expert. I just liked riding, and everyone was buying up horses back then. But I don't ride them anymore."
He has put his prized horses up for sale for a fraction of what he paid for them.
"This one horse, around seven years ago, was worth $40,000. But not anymore," Manuel says. "Now he's worth less than half, around $17,000. Prices have fallen so much. These are tough times."
Adopting Horses
In Spain it can cost about $400 a month to house and feed a horse and pay veterinary bills. Manuel has five. He won't say what he'll do if he's unable to find a buyer.
But last year, more than 70,000 Spanish horses were sent to slaughterhouses, more than twice the annual average before the country's economy tanked. Some of those are exported to France and Italy, where there's less of a stigma against eating horse meat than in Spain. But others erroneously ended up in the food supply, sparking scandal last year.
Concordia Mrquez tries to save horses from that fate. She runs a shelter in southern Spain, just outside Malaga, called CYD Santa Maria. It adopts horses that might otherwise end up in the food supply.
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