Consumption of horse meat is illegal in California, so that might make it hard. I guess they could sell it out-of-state.
I'm too lazy to research the recent history of the issue, but I remember around 5 years ago this issue was playing out. There were no commercial horse slaughterhouses in the US and then eventually one tried to set itself up in the Southwest. Meat in interstate commerce has to be inspected, and Congress refused to appropriate money for horse meat inspections, but then there was a lawsuit and the trial court judge said under the law Congress had to fund horse meat inspections. I remember Ron Paul's 2012 presidential platform included an express change in federal law to ban commercial horse slaughter instead of just a rider. But I honestly have no idea if the FDA or APHIS or whatever actually inspected the horse meat slaughterhouse. Assuming the feds are required to inspect horse meat, I still don't see a domestic market for horse meat.
California should try and gift some of these horses to various Plains Indian Tribes.
