06/11/2026
In October, on the SS640 state road in the province of Caltanissetta, the Traffic Police stopped a truck carrying four horses in its cargo bed. Three of the horses belonged to other owners. The driver held a licence to transport flowers and plants on his own account and was not on the National Register of Road Hauliers. The vehicle also had unauthorised modifications. The fines came to about ten thousand euros, and the truck was placed under administrative seizure. So far nothing links those horses to illegal racing, but the most important question remains open: where did they come from, and where were they going?
That case was the starting point for the talk given today by IHP at the ANITE conference on own-account and for-hire horse transport at Fieracavalli in Verona. His argument was that irregular transport, illegal racing and clandestine slaughter may be stages along the same route. No single investigation has established a systematic connection, but the records show that the links in the chain touch.
Three links
The journey. In Messina in 2024, the two horses in an illegal race had no microchips and had been brought to the site in vans not authorised to carry horses. In July 2025 the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into environmental and agri-food crime approved a report on “zoomafia” (organised crime involving animals). The report flags unusual exports of horses to Libya and Tunisia with incomplete documentation, and some of those horses never reached their destination.
The race. In Palagonia, near Catania, two young horses with no microchips raced at dawn on 8 May while shots were fired into the air, some from a Kalashnikov. In September a 21-year-old was arrested. Prosecutors allege that he carried a weapon of war, with the aggravating circumstance of having helped a mafia clan. In Castelvetrano, the preliminary investigations judge of Marsala ordered five precautionary measures over an illegal racetrack. That investigation began with a complaint filed by IHP.
The slaughter. In Perugia, a trial is under way over an alleged clandestine slaughter system operating between Umbria and Apulia, and IHP is a civil party to it. According to the prosecution, more than one hundred equids were transferred on paper to farms they never reached and were then deleted from the National Database using the so-called “Z code”.
Two groups, one checkpoint
Horses without microchips often appear in the illegal races around Catania and Messina. They are outside the system and were brought in through clandestine transfers or smuggling. For these horses, the problem is the lack of checks on the ground, starting with those of the local health authorities (ASL). The failure lies in the system, not with any single office or individual.
Other horses did have an official life. One is Evenafterall, which vanished from transport records after 32 races at six racecourses and was seized in 2023 by Messina police headquarters during an operation against illegal racing. Others are the “track rejects” that Catania police headquarters identified in 2025. For these horses, the problem is an equine registry that allows a horse to be deleted without any supporting documents.
Both groups, however, have to travel:a horse retired in Tuscany doesn’t get to Sicily on its own. Thorough checks on transport would make it possible to intercept all of them: the horses the system has never seen, and those it has lost track of.
The demands
IHP is asking for these measures to be implemented immediately:
Finally, IHP appealed to transporters who follow the rules, because illegal operators cost them through unfair competition and damage to their reputation: every roadside check, every report, every document verified is a chance to bring a horse back into the system, or to stop one from leaving it.
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