A horse owner can put a reserve on the animal for higher than average meat costs to ensure the animal will not be sold as meat. From what I have been told lately a lot of horses have not been going for meat and the market is down.
Hopefully the SPCA put reserves on the horses to ensure the meat buyer is not interested.
I feel the SPCA should have put them up for adoption and properly screened homes, horses as we know can be just as abused as a dog or cat, there are many horse rescues in the lower mainland that I am sure would have been happy to help, but as usual the SPCA doesn't ask for help from people who know how to successfully rescue & adopt animals.