Interview with a kill buyer: how racehorses end up as meat

Peter Loffel is the face of horse racing’s unpalatable truth.

He is known as a kill buyer, although he prefers the term horse trader. He buys horses no one wants and trucks them to a place no horse wants to end up - the Meramist abattoir featured in last week’s 7.30 expose on ABC.

The horses he buys are nearly all retired racehorses or trotters, he tells The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He says he buys most of his gallopers direct from trainers, licensed participants in an industry which has spent the past four days claiming it has no idea so many thoroughbreds are sent to abattoirs.

"Most of them are some sort of racehorse. We don't buy people's riding horses or saddle horses."

Please click here to read the rest of the article as it appears on The Age website.

Article written by: Chip Le Grand