ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) — A four-year-old English racehorse, which was retired after an injury, ended up being slaughtered and served to unwitting diners at a Turkish soup kitchen, local media reports said.

The scandal surfaced after one of the diners complained about finding something in his food in the southern city of Mersin last month.

Agriculture ministry investigators discovered the object was a microchip belonging to a racehorse called
Smart Latch, a thoroughbred mare which had won first-place finishes at the hippodrome in the nearby city of Adana.

On examining the food where the chip was found — a dish called kavurma normally made of fried beef or lamb — they realised it was horse meat.

Details only emerged after a March 12 ministry update which said the kavurma from Mersin municipality’s soup kitchen had been “added to the list of unsafe products after testing showed it contained meat from a single-hoofed animal”— a horse, donkey or mule.

“We are in distress,” owner Suat Topcu told DHA news agency on Friday, saying the mare, which began racing in 2024, had been recently retired after suffering a leg injury.

Her last race was in October.

Topcu said he had arranged to have her donated to a riding club, using a local transporter he knew, but had no idea what actually happened to the mare until he was contacted by the agriculture ministry.

The ministry fined him 132,000 Turkish lira (around US$3,000) for not formally reporting the donation, the agency said.

“The fine is not important, what’s important is finding those who committed this cruelty,” he said.

Investigators quoted believe the horse never reached the riding club and was instead taken for slaughter, and suspect her meat was falsely labelled as “beef” then sold to the company that supplies the municipality.

In response, the municipality said the meat used had been sourced in line with the necessary regulations.