Fact Check

Do 52 Thoroughbred Horses Need New Homes Due to COVID-19?

A plea that dozens of horses are destined for slaughter if adopters are not found for them soon is inaccurate and long out-of-date.

Published June 7, 2020

 (Olga_i / Shutterstock.com)
Image Via Olga_i / Shutterstock.com
Claim:
52 thoroughbred horses whose owner died from COVID-19 are destined for slaughter if adopters are not found for them soon.

A plea for adopters to take in 52 thoroughbred horses destined for slaughter after the death of their owner due to the COVID-19 coronavirus disease, began circulating on Facebook in June 2020:

This plea was in fact a variant of an item that had begun circulating over nine years earlier and had nothing to do with COVID-19. As we explain in our original article on this topic, the "52 thoroughbred horses" message originated in 2011, and although it had some truth to it back then, homes were quickly found for all of the displaced equines.

The coronavirus-related variant reproduced above is both inaccurate and long out of date.

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.