The horse auction in San Antonio is organised by horse dealer Richard Prego, who is one of Clay’s largest suppliers of slaughter horses. The sale starts at 15:00. Theauctioneer announces through loudspeakers that 400 horses are offered for sale. Both riding and loose horses are chased through the auction ring for about two minutes. The handling by…

The horse auction in San Antonio is organised by horse dealer Richard Prego, who is one of Clay’s largest suppliers of slaughter horses. The sale starts at 15:00. Theauctioneer announces through loudspeakers that 400 horses are offered for sale. Both riding and loose horses are chased through the auction ring for about two minutes. The handling by…

We arrive at the auction site outside San Antonio at 15:30. The auction will take place the next day, but 230 horses have already been delivered and about half of  them are yearlings. A horse transporter is parked at the ramp and we observe the unloading, which is quite chaotic. The handling by the workers is rough; they hit the horses with long…

Today we visit the collecting station of horse dealer Prego near Canelones in the

south of Uruguay. He is one of Clay’s largest suppliers and shipped 1.147 horses to Clay in the past year. When we arrive, an employee is busy preparing horses for anauction that takes place in San Antonio the next day. He is cutting their manes and says that they…

We continue to the estancia “La Paloma” of blood farmer Roberto Mailhos. His foreman does not introduce himself and says he does not have permission to give us any information. We want to know how many mares there are on the blood farm. He claims 80 to 90. Just along the access road to the estancia, we have seen about 200. A worker tells us later…

Today we want to visit the blood farm “Loma Azul”, one of the farms of the probably largest blood producer, Syntex Uruguay SA. From customs documents we know that Syntex Uruguay alone exports blood serum worth about 2 Mio. US-Dollars to Europe every month.

The blood farm is secured like a military facility. We manage to pass the first barrier, at…

On a pasture belonging to the slaughterhouse El Amanecer, we find a decaying carcass of a horse as well as several horse skulls. There are no bullet holes in the skulls, what implies that the horses were left to die instead of being euthanized.

Next to the slaughterhouse building, there are eight waiting pens, which do not offer any shade from the…

At 15:15, we arrive in the small village Valentines in the Department of Treinta y Tres and ask around for the farm of Syntex. People have never heard of this company, but say that this must be the farm of Rubio where they take blood from mares (Federico Rubio is indeed the owner of Syntex Uruguay SA). People say that the estancia is called “El…

At 15:15, we arrive in the small village Valentines in the Department of Treinta y Tres and ask around for the farm of Syntex. People have never heard of this company, but say that this must be the farm of Rubio where they take blood from mares (Federico Rubio is indeed the owner of Syntex Uruguay SA). People say that the estancia is called “El…