The Review

Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Courtesy of Alex Brown Former university professor Alex Brown will head to Washington D.C. in March to lobby for the ban of horse slaughter.

For the past 20 years Alex Brown, professor of business, has taught Internet marketing at the university. He also woke up every morning at 4 a.m. and went to Fair Hill Training Center to train between eight and 10 race horses before going to work each day.

"I had a really great situation at Fair Hill," Brown said. "I could teach Internet marketing, do consulting, and could gallop horses. I mean I had a really great gig going here for a while."

He said he left both jobs last year to save horses. On March 4 and 5, Brown plans to go to Washington, D.C. to lobby for the ban of horse slaughter.

"We will bring a large number of big names and try to put pressure on the government to make it a federal offense to slaughter horses as well as transport them to be slaughtered," Brown said.

After the 2006 running of the Preakness Stakes, when the race horse Barbaro broke his leg, he said he began to focus his toward horse welfare. He met with colleagues in Houston, Texas, and established Americans Against Horse Slaughter, an organization designed to raise money in order to rescue horses that may otherwise get slaughtered.

"There is no horse slaughter in the states right now," Brown said. "There are, however, many horses taken from the states and brought to Canada and Mexico to be slaughtered then shipped to Asia and Europe to be eaten. We should not slaughter our horses, nor should we transport them somewhere else to be slaughtered for someone else to eat."

Growing up in England, Brown said he was constantly surrounded by horses and was always riding. Although teaching at the university provided him with the opportunity to train horses, he was unable to get involved with issues of horse welfare as much as he had wanted.

Sally Goswell, manager of Fairhill Training Center, said she agrees with what Brown is lobbying for and supports him.

"When he left Fair Hill, I didn't know what he was doing," Goswell said. "I have since found out and I think it's great."

Brown said he has been living a much different lifestyle while pursuing horse welfare issues.

"I'm traveling the country from race track to race track to look at horse welfare issues in all parts of the country," he said. "I know that I can make enough money training horses to afford a motel and a meal bill. I'm finding out what happens to the horses after they race to see if they are properly taken care of and where they are transported to."

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