The ugly are those to whom horses are a commodity and who seem to have forgotten these animals are sentient beings. The most culpable in the chain are some of the dealers and transporters, and unfortunately we witnessed abuse from nationalities across the board.

One of the Dutch dealers, who had been buying and selling all day, was riding a cremello Iberian type round bareback in a headcollar with a rope twisted through its mouth to give him control, in an attempt to sell. This horse had been hauled up from Spain either that day or the night before, and faced another long haul somewhere whatever his fate – changing the laws on TOTAL distance for live transport down to eight hours would stop this.

Once the animals are bought by the commercial butchers, they are either herded or led to the weight crushes, where the youngsters are chased through, and the led ones have their headcollars removed in the crush, and are then herded with sticks into the loading bay pens just like the foals.

For long haul trips (over eight hours) the welfare laws dictate that young /unhandled horses can be transported in same sex, same age groups of up to four. If they can wear a headcollar, they are classed as handled. Handled horses must be travelled partitioned separately. These were not.

We witnessed one commercial transporter load 12 heavy breed mixed sex foals and older handled horses loose onto the front half of an enormous articulated trailer, and cram them tightly in. The second half of the trailer had 10 older horses squashed in. All were handled, we’d watched them take the headcollars off as they left the weigh crush. At least two kicking matches occurred in both trailers, and at one point one of the horses in the first trailer went down.

Watching it happen, the stupidity of the process astounded us. If they had loaded these animals according to the regulations, the handlers’ task would have been so much easier and the horses would not have endured this unnecessary stress and panic that their rough handling caused.

This lorry was going to north east ITALY, a journey of at least 14 hours – changing the laws on TOTAL distance for live transport down to eight hours would stop this.

The most unspeakable sight of all was tiny little coloured ponies, about the size of large dogs. Over thirty of these little souls were crushed together in a couple of pens, and were dying on their feet. Most had eye infections, a couple were very lame, and all had given up. It looked as if they hadn’t been off the lorry for a long time. Once again, no respect was given to these animals as they were handled, to the dealer they were simply a few euros on legs.

From type and size and markings, we believe that these were Dartmoor hill ponies. The last UK sale from Dartmoor was on 14th of October, with ponies selling for around £2.50 each. The dealer at Maurs was asking for as much as 250€ each for them. That would very much make it a worthwhile trip for him.

We were surprised to see the Italian buyers in negotiation with the dealer. There is little or no meat value in these ponies, especially as they appeared to be starving, and are simply skin and bone on legs. We suspect their coat markings would hold value, with Italy being famous for skin and leather production.

These exhausted ponies face yet more misery and suffering before their final destination – changing the laws on TOTAL distance for live transport down to eight hours would stop this.

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