A federal appeals court in Houston has ruled that horse slaughter is illegal in Texas, home to two of the nation’s three processing plants.

The decision, issued on Jan. 19th by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, overturns a lower federal district court’s 2006 ruling on a 1949 Texas law that banned horse slaughter for the purpose of selling the meat for food.

The lower court had said the Texas law was invalid because it had already been repealed by another statute and pre-empted by federal law.

But in the 5th Circuit’s decision, Judge Fortunato Benavides wrote that “the lone cowboy riding his horse on a Texas trail is a cinematic icon. Not once in memory did the cowboy eat his horse