CARMEL — Angel's days were numbered. No doubt about it.
Once a beloved pet, the petite white pony was now a starving wisp of skin stretched over bone. Her hooves--untrimmed for months--were grotesque, like gnarled driftwood. Try as she might, Angel could scarcely walk.
When the pony hobbled into a Monterey County auction yard last summer, the slaughterhouse buyers sized her up, made some quick calculations and prepared to bid. But fate intervened, and Angel was soon munching hay at a Carmel sanctuary for victims of equine abuse.
Her story ended happily, but the lives of thousands of other horses that wind up on the auction block do not.
Each year, truckloads of California horses are slaughtered and shipped to Europe and Japan, where the meat is popular as a sweeter, lower-fat alternative to beef.
Some are old and badly injured. But others--like Angel--are merely unlucky castoffs, victims of circumstance or an owner's callous change of heart.
When backers of a California initiative to ban the sale of horses for slaughter launched their campaign last year, it was unclear how the public would respond. Now we know: Voters are signing the anti-slaughter petitions in droves, virtually assuring the measure a place on the November ballot.
"Horses are companion animals--revered and loved like cats and dogs," said Cathleen Doyle of the California Equine Council, a nonprofit protection group. "They should not be ending up on someone's plate."
The initiative would ban the sale and killing of California horses for human consumption. If the measure becomes law, California would be the first state to bar owners from selling their horses for human consumption.
Doyle and two other women--Long's Drug Store heiresses Sherry DeBoer and Sidne Long--are the brains and bucks behind the ballot quest, but they have enlisted some influential friends.
A host of celebrities have endorsed their goal--among them Peter Falk, Diane Keaton and Stephanie Powers--as have Olympic riders, several thoroughbred racetracks and the district attorneys of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
For expert help, supporters have turned to a seasoned consultant with a winning record in the hit-or-miss arena of initiative drives. The consultant--Ken Masterton--says backers need 477,000 valid voter signatures to qualify their measure for the ballot, a goal he calls within reach.
