 "Photo: Courtesy of Alex Brown")
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."
Brown said his Web site, AlexBrownRacing.com, has served as a tremendous resource for people who are interested in following his journey as well as individuals who want to get involved in the welfare movement one way or another.
"This Web site is the most significant Web site in the country having to do with horse rescue," Brown said. "In a little over one year, the site has raised more than $800,000 dollars which has been used to rescue more than 2,000 horses who would have other wise been slaughtered."
Julie Caramante, a fellow lobbyist against horse slaughter, said that she was able to connect with Brown through the site.
"I first met Alex through his Web site," Caramante said. "When Alex came to Houston he gave me a call and we sat down and had lunch to discuss the horse slaughter issue. That is the day that we decided to get a group together and lobby Congress to press for the ban on horse slaughter."
Brown said he is focusing on certain areas of the country because he thinks there will be greater results.
"I've spent time in Kentucky and I'm now in Texas," he said. "I want to focus on states with strong cultural ties to the horse because I think it will have a greater effect on the people there."
When Brown is finished in Texas, he said he plans to take the AAHS movement international and get as many people involved as he possibly can.
"My next step may be Canada," Brown said. "I want to go here because many of our horses are shipped off there for slaughter."
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