Riding Club Slammed For Horse Meat Meal

The equestrians of Linköping University in southern Sweden certainly love their horses, but they're now the subject of some condemnation at the university after the team was caught enjoying horses on their plates as well as under their saddles.

According to The Local, the university riding club has an annual party at a restaurant, and this year the club organizers had the idea to go to De Klomp, an establishment well-known for serving primarily horse meat. The team reportedly attended as a large group and enjoyed a mixture of cured meats and a main course of roasted horse meat accompanied by warm potato and vegetable salad with chile mayonaise. The menu was paired with a beer called Dead Pony.

Many were not happy about the riding club's choice of restaurant, and another student started a petition to condemn the riding team. More than 1,000 people reportedly signed the petition against the team for patronizing the horse meat restaurant.

"We thought we might get some upset comments, but not that those people would start a petition – certainly not," said Frida Dagsgård, the riding club's treasurer and vice president. "It started as a joke. Someone said that maybe we could test horse meat. First of all we laughed, then we thought that it was something we could actually do."

De Klomp's owner, Take Aanstoot, is of course no stranger to controversy and said he welcomed the debate over the riding club's meal.

"I want more people to talk about meat production and not wasting food," he said, "because we are wasting food because we think that some things are too cute to eat."