Why The Grand National Needs to Be Banned
From the 3rd-5th April, The Grand National meeting will take place: a brutal event which has claimed the lives of 65 horses since 2000.
Posted 31 Mar 2025

Posted on the 2nd April 2025
The Grand National meeting starts tomorrow – a cruel ‘festival’ which has killed 65 horses since 2000, injured many more, and displayed toxic negligence towards the wellbeing of animals.
The racing industry has consistently dressed the Grand National up to be something it is not. This year, we see clever marketing being used to hide the suffering – slogans such as ‘the greatest story in sport’ and ‘this is where stories become legends’. These are fairytales – darkened fairytales, which work to insidiously hide the true cruelty which this industry is built on.
This three-day meeting is a dystopian horror-show, where raucous crowds cheer, money is gambled, champagne flows and music blares – all the while innocent animals are running for their lives on a course designed to punish them.
All horse racing is inherently exploitative and cruel. The Grand National Meeting is a symbolic marker of this cruelty because it receives such ‘fairytale’ marketing by the industry and is has been viewed historically as an event to be ‘proud of’. Find out more about the suffering behind the Grand National here.
You can also listen to our new poem, written in response to the racing industry’s marketing of the Grand National as ‘The Greatest Story in Sport’.
From the 3rd-5th April, The Grand National meeting will take place: a brutal event which has claimed the lives of 65 horses since 2000.
Posted 31 Mar 2025
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