Few Americans are aware that their country’s horses are being exported and slaughtered abroad – often in appalling conditions – to supply European taste for a meat that’s shunned at home. Andrew Wasley reports.

Herded down a concrete shute, the horses — black and brown and grey; fat, healthy, thin, lame — have little idea of the fate that awaits them. But one by one, the horses are separated from those behind, a metal trapdoor swinging down to confine each to a metal box. There’s blood and filth on the walls and floor. Flies buzz.