Posted on the 15th June 2015
To remember the four horses who died at last year’s Royal Ascot meeting – Flat racing’s most prestigious event – Animal Aid staged a ceremony on Ladies’ Day, Thursday 18 June.
Outside the main entrance of the Berkshire course, Animal Aid’s visually stunning ‘Spectres of Death’ unveiled a tombstone inscribed with the names of the horses who perished: Case Statement died from a broken lower leg; Inchila and Sir Graham Wade suffered a fractured pelvis; and Tiger Cliff collapsed and died after the race.
That Ascot has serious problems in need of urgent attention was made clear just last week when the Racing Writer of the Year, Alan Lee, declared in the Times that Royal Ascot is ‘a stage on which jockeys have regularly been guilty of a win-at-all-costs attitude with the whip in the principal races’.
In fact, whip abuse and on-course fatalities are problems that beset courses around the country. In 2014, 189 horses died on British racecourses and there were 586 breaches of the British Horseracing Authority rules against excessive whip use.
Says Animal Aid’s Horse Racing Consultant, Dene Stansall:
‘Last year’s deaths went almost unreported amidst the pomp and ceremony of Royal Ascot. In fact, many racegoers may not have even been aware of a single horse death let alone four.
Animal Aid’s Spectres of Death are at the meeting to compel visitors to reflect upon the price horses pay so that they can be entertained. Royal Ascot dresses itself up as an impossibly chic and high-class event when in fact it is part of a grubby industry that is rooted in gambling and horse exploitation.’
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