Pop Rocks: The "Mane" Course -- Eight Famous Horses We'd Like To Eat

Horses could soon be butchered in the U.S. for human consumption after Congress quietly lifted a 5-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections, and activists say slaughterhouses could be up and running in as little as a month.
Slaughter opponents pushed a measure cutting off funding for horse meat inspections through Congress in 2006 after other efforts to pass outright bans on horse slaughter failed in previous years. Congress lifted the ban in a spending bill President Barack Obama signed into law Nov. 18 to keep the government afloat until mid-December.
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The last U.S. slaughterhouse that butchered horses closed in 2007 in Illinois, and animal welfare activists warned of massive public outcry in any town where a slaughterhouse may open. "If plants open up in Oklahoma or Nebraska, you'll see controversy, litigation, legislative action and basically a very inhospitable environment to operate," predicted Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of The Humane Society of the United States.

I predict Wayne Pacelle is vastly overrating the equine-related indignation of the citizens of Oklahoma and Nebraska.

I've eaten horse. I was overseas at the time, and although I knew I should probably make an effort to remember the experience, the taste escapes me. But let's not linger on my failings as a culinary correspondent; rather, let's consider some of the more famous horses we'd like to...chew the fat with.

Leader of the Brumbies (The Man from Snowy River)
At least Inigo Montoya and Bruce Wayne had human beings to blame for killing their fathers. Can you hear Jim Craig admitting to Curly and boys at Harrison's ranch that a horse murdered his dad? They'd laugh him all the way to Kalgoorlie. So while it wasn't shown in the movie, you know Jim threw that stallion on the barbie as soon as he had him corralled.

"Not Lightning" (Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken)
This is why you warn your daughters to avoid the big city: because they might dive into a pool of water with a strange horse and end up blind. Beat that, Nick Cave.

The Horse that..."Loved" Kenneth Pinyan to Death (The Enumclaw Horse Sex Case)
If left to choose the manner of my demise, it's safe to say "colon perforation by horse penis" would rank somewhere pretty close to the bottom. Below even "smothered by Val Kilmer's moobs."

The actual video is out there, if you really want to watch it. For sanity's sake, I'll stick with the trailer for the movie it inspired, ZOO.

"The Pie" (National Velvet)
I don't really have anything against Liz Taylor's trusty steed, I just really don't like Mickey Rooney, and, unfortunately, the horse must suffer for it.