The animals lost a true champion in Congress today, and The HSUS and HSLF lost a great friend, with the passing of five-term U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who was the Senate’s oldest member at 89.

I’ve pointed out many times on this blog that the horse slaughter industry in the U.S. is cruel and predatory, gathering and killing horses in particularly gruesome ways. It’s a sad fate for so many American horses—iconic companion animals not raised for human consumption but often ending up on foreign dinner plates. The entire horse slaughter pipeline, from auction to transport to the cruel slaughter process, is terrifying and inherently inhumane for horses.

In what other professional sport is it acceptable for 24 athletes to die each week? With millions of Americans watching the Kentucky Derby this weekend, it’s an important time to take stock of the horseracing industry and the critical reforms that are needed to protect the welfare of its equine competitors—because the toll in animal deaths and injuries year after year is far too great and so many of them are preventable.