New film and adverts announce the launch of Animal Aid’s campaign to Ban Jump Racing

To mark the launch of the campaign, Animal Aid is releasing a series of hard-hitting adverts, as well as a new film, calling for an end to Jump Racing in Britain.

National Hunt jump racing kills more than 150 horses annually in Britain, which means that approximately 1 in every 58 horses are killed in a season. Since 2001 more than 3,000 horses have been killed as a result of jump racing.

We are calling on one of racing’s mainstream broadcasters – ITV – to distance itself from this cruel and old-fashioned activity, and instead promote real sports that don’t put animals at risk of danger or death.

In addition, we are calling on Radio 4’s ‘Today’ program to stop broadcasting their ‘tip’ of the day, or, if they persist, to also broadcast the names of horses who have died since the previous broadcast. This is in line with their ‘Public Purpose’ as set down in their Royal Charter.

For more info see animalaid.org.uk/BanJumpRacing

Background facts

• Animal Aid has been at the forefront of exposing, and campaigning against, the racing industry for more than two decades.
• In 2007, we launched Race Horse Deathwatch – the only public record of the names and details of horses who were killed on British racecourses, compiled using Animal Aid’s meticulous research.
• Animal Aid has compiled a list of the names and details of all the horses who have died at the Cheltenham Festival and the Grand National since 2000.
• Animal Aid’s Horseracing Consultant, Dene Stansall, has analysed the issues surrounding Cheltenham Racecourse and the Festival, in his report entitled Why more horses die at Cheltenham than at any other British racecourse and has written a major Briefing document on the issues with the Grand National racecourse and event.
• Animal Aid’s campaign to ban the use of the whip in racing was supported by 96 MPs.  A public opinion poll in 2018 found that 68% of respondents oppose the use of the whip in racing.
• Animal Aid’s campaign which calls for the creation of an independent body to be responsible for race horse welfare, led to a Parliamentary debate on race horse welfare in 2018. Animal Aid continues to campaign for the British Horseracing Authority to be stripped of its responsibility for race horse welfare, due to the shocking rate of race horse deaths and injuries.
• In 2021, Animal Aid’s undercover footage from a UK abattoir that slaughters horses, featured exclusively in the BBC Panorama programme entitled The Dark Side of Horseracing. The programme showed that horses, including horses from the British and Irish racing industries, were being slaughtered for their meat. As a result of the programme the British Horseracing Authority introduced regulations that make it compulsory for any horse racing in Britain to be signed out of the food chain. One of the horses featured in the programme was top race horse Vyta Du Roc, who was killed for his meat. For more information visit: animalaid.org.uk/horse-slaughter