Herfluvr, I totally agree with you. However, what about the "back yard breeders" that don't care about registration papers or points? Often those are the horses that end up neglected because they have no papers or pedigree to speak of. We also owned a stud and bred registered QH and paints, in 2008 we gelded our stud and stopped breeding. We saw the writing on the wall, and knew the market was over. I am totally for opening the slaughter houses back up, but the government also needs to look at how many mustangs it is paying for that have been captured but can not be adopted. Send them to slaughter, instead of losing money each month paying someone board on them!
There are so many pieces to this topic. A horse is a livestock animal plain and simple.