A plea for adopters to take in 52 thoroughbred horses destined for slaughter after the death of their owner due to the COVID-19 coronavirus disease, began circulating on Facebook in June 2020:
This plea was in fact a variant of an item that had begun circulating over nine years earlier and had nothing to do with COVID-19. As we explain in our original article on this topic, the "52 thoroughbred horses" message originated in 2011, and although it had some truth to it back then, homes were quickly found for all of the displaced equines.
The coronavirus-related variant reproduced above is both inaccurate and long out of date.