Posted on the 3rd March 2020
The notorious Cheltenham Festival will be taking place this year on 10 - 13 March. Every year since 2002, horses have died at the Festival. A total of 67 horses have lost their lives at the Festival since 2000.
Three horses died at last year’s event, and seven the previous year. At the root of the problem is racing’s regulator, the British Horseracing Authority (BHA). It is responsible for race horse welfare but has failed to curb the number of fatalities in racing. In 2018, the BHA announced that it would undertake a review of the deaths at the festival that year. It took the BHA nine months to produce the report, and many of the recommendations fell well short of what is needed, and, above all, failed to address key issues such as the ‘win at all costs’ mentality of many jockeys at the event, the number of obstacles or the gruelling length of some races.
Footage of festive events obtained by the reindeer coalition (Animal Aid, Born Free Foundation, Freedom For Animals and OneKind) and their supporters was sent for review to Dr Tayla Hammond, an expert in animal welfare...
Posted 03 Feb 2025
Those who support or even promote the use of animals in experiments will often talk about ‘gold standards’ of science and care and show photographs of animals – dogs, mice, primates and others – living...
Posted 24 Jan 2025
