Platinum Ticket, a successful grey Thoroughbred racehorse is discovered at the Knoxville Livestock Auction kill pen barely alive with a bullet in his head. This documentary exposes the dirty secrets of the horse slaughter industry through the tragic story of Platinum Ticket. This successful grey Thoroughbred racehorse was discovered in a kill pen at the Knoxville Livestock Auction barely alive with a bullet in his head. The film tells the story of how he got there -- from winning purses at the racetrack to winning ribbons in the jumper show ring -- until his fortunes suddenly changed. Like tens of thousands of American horses each year, he became trapped in the horse slaughter pipeline – a long cruel road to a brutal death in the slaughterhouses of Mexico and Canada.
Being cruel to helpless animals is inhumane and wrong. We have laws in place to prevent cruelty, but they are not being enforced. From the moment a horse is sold into the slaughter pipeline and that round sticker is stuck on their back they are treated like a commodity as opposed to an animal with intelligence and feelings. They are denied food, water, and medical care. They are hit, stabbed and prodded and stuck in crowded pens and transports until their tragic end. Horse slaughter people will tell you it’s the result of overbreeding and that it would be worse to see them starve in the fields. Does that excuse the cruel treatment they receive along the way?
