The horses at 13 Hands Equine Rescue Farm in Dutchess County live in an idyllic place.
The farm was founded by Marylou Tortorello in 2015 and is now home to over 200 horses, as well as dozens of donkeys, goats and even zebras.
Despite the beautiful setting, many of the horses and animals at 13 Hands have not always had a perfect life, and many were rescued from starvation and abuse.
"Some can fully recover, absolutely, if they're young. The ones that really have trouble are the older ones, or if they've really had abuse," Tortorello said. "Even some of the ones that are starved do turn around. It does take some time. We have before [and] after pictures. They tend to just take some time to get back to the horse they should have been. And the refeeding process could take six months to a year. You know, it depends on the horse and the issues."
Tortorello thinks it's too easy to buy horses, especially for people who don't plan to take care of them. At the beginning of September, New York State troopers caught a shipment of 25 horses that were being smuggled from Pennsylvania to Canada. In the early morning on Sept. 2, troopers arrested the driver of a Freightliner towing a livestock trailer through DeKalb, New York, near the Canadian border. Troopers were investigating the shipment by Shippensburg, Pennsylvania-based Rotz Livestock after activists tipped them off.
"Our investigators were at the farm in Pennsylvania days before the actual transport happened, and we monitored, you know, the activity, what's going on, and then, you know, when we saw movement, and trucks being loaded, then we alerted the New York State Police and they did the rest," said Sonya Meadows, board president of the nonprofit Animals' Angels — the group that tipped off the police.
Troopers said that this was the first arrest under a New York State law passed in 2024 that prohibits the slaughter of horses for human consumption as well as their transport through the state. Troopers said the rescued horses were taken to an undisclosed animal clinic in Albany, a facility much like 13 Hands.
Meadows said the owner of those 25 horses, Bruce Rotz, is a notorious kill buyer that Animals' Angels has been tracking for years. Kill buyers will specifically buy horses for slaughter, Meadows explained. She said Rotz Livestock transported over 1,500 horses to Canada for slaughter just in 2025. The Center for a Humane Economy estimates 25,000 horses are exported each year for slaughter, including many to Mexico.
Rotz's Livestock did not respond to a request for comment.
Meadows said Quebec is one of the places where horse meat is still pretty popular, but the majority of the meat that is exported to Canada is then sent on to Japan. She said Japan is the biggest consumer of the meat at this point, but there are also large quantities imported back into the U.S. to then be sold for zoo meat.
The Times Union reported in 2022 that Rotz Livestock is the only place of its kind in the Northeast that trucks horses directly to slaughter in Canada. A recent Reuters investigation of horse smuggling to Mexico, not specifically for slaughter, estimated that trafficked horses could fetch $30,000 on the black market, while smugglers avoided import paperwork, taxes, and veterinary requirements.
Meadows said horse slaughter is a particularly inhumane business for several reasons.
"A horse is a flight animal, so they're very concerned about, like, anything that approaches their forehead [or], you know, is causing them to panic. So there is no humane way to slaughter a horse. So that's number one," she said. "Then also, slaughter horses are transported — 30-plus horses in one transport. They use aluminum cattle trailers to haul these horses, which is extremely inhumane. Temperatures can soar up to over 100 degrees.
"And then also at the auctions, you know, slaughter horses are treated completely different than other horses, and they're put together in large pens, and routinely not given food and water. So you name it; it's a very, very inhumane industry."
Tortorello said the abuse of horses often takes the form of neglect by people who own them and don't think about or realize the care a horse will require. Eventually, the horse gets put up for auction.
"They could be there [at auction] because someone can't afford them. Their daughter went off to college, and they can't care for the animal anymore. They say, 'Well, I'll put them in the auction and get some money, and someone good will take it,'" Tortorello said. "That can happen, but kill buyers can buy them, or someone who doesn't treat an animal good, because anyone can buy. If you have the money, you can buy it. So there's no real rules. The rules for animal cruelty aren't that good, and I think a lot of these organizations are trying to get that fixed."
Tortorello hopes more people can come to understand the gravity of owning an animal, but she's not sure which rule changes could be made.
"I don't know if it could be a rule, but people would need to know when they take in an animal that it's for life, or if you need to sell the horse or give it away, you would follow it, keep track of where it goes, know that it goes to the right person, and that you're responsible for it," she said.
