Animal Aid

Every year, Animal Aid stages Horse Racing Awareness Week (29 March-4 April) in the seven days running up to the Grand National. This is to highlight the cruelty of this race in particular, as well as the more widespread exploitation of horses by the racing industry. This year, we have produced a new leaflet specifically aimed at the Grand National three-day meeting at Aintree. Please order supplies of our new leaflet to distribute to friends, family and work colleagues and house-to-house. This is the only time of the year that many people, caught up in the media hype, will place a bet, believing that it is nothing more than a harmless flutter. It is vital to get this leaflet out to as many people as possible, as soon as possible.

Please take your pick from the action ideas below:

• Order leaflets and posters from us and distribute them in your high street, outside betting shops and, if you live near a racecourse, outside the main entrance (please call us to check racing dates).
• Send out our standard email about the Grand National to work colleagues, friends and family. It contains vital information and links to our horse racing and horse slaughter footage.
• Link to our horse racing film and horse slaughter undercover film from your MySpace or Facebook accounts with a message to boycott the Grand National.
• Download our new horse racing screen saver
• Download or order copies of our petition and collect signatures – it’s a great way of approaching people to let them know why betting on the Grand National is a bad idea.
• Email the letters page of your local paper. Getting into print ensures the message will reach many thousands of readers. Here is a template to help you get started.
• Buy our Horse Racing sticker and put it in your front window or in your car.

Background information:

The three-day Grand National event will be held from 2-4 April 2009. The course is deliberately difficult to add to the ‘excitement’, and it claimed the lives of 30 horses between 1998 and 2008. Animal Aid would like to see the Grand National banned, for all time!

Unfortunately, the race is well publicised and well hyped. It is the one time during the year that many people will be tempted to place a bet. It is precisely these people who we need to reach and let them know the true horrors of the horse racing industry.

Annually, around 420 horses are raced to death in Britain. Some 38% of these fatalities occur during, or immediately after, a race – and result from a broken leg, back, neck or pelvis; fatal spinal injuries; exhaustion; heart attack, or burst blood vessels. The other victims perish from training injuries or are killed after being assessed by their owners as no-hopers. Some of these animals will end their days in a UK abattoir – their meat destined for human consumption on the continent.

In 2007, Animal Aid undercover investigators covertly filmed inside one of these abattoirs and witnessed a variety of horses – including apparently young, healthy Thoroughbreds – being slaughtered. It was the very first time that such scenes had been captured on film, and our revelations gained extensive coverage in national media.

Betting on and attending horse races funds an industry that deliberately over-produces horses in the search for ‘winners’, and sells on ‘failures’ to dealers or direct to the abattoir. We believe that the more that people are made aware of the consequences of their annual ‘harmless flutter’, the less likely they will be to bet on the Grand National.