How Many Horses’ Lives Will Royal Ascot Claim This Year?
Horses have died during every Royal Ascot meet for the last four years. Elaborate hats and fancy dresses can’t distract from the massacre on the track.
©Liss Ralston
According to Race Horse Death Watch, Ascot is one of the deadliest tracks for horses racing on the flat.
What possesses anyone to watch horses smash face-first into the ground, fracture their bones or just collapse from exhaustion and die? The chance to make a few pounds or have a day out isn’t worth their suffering.
Young horses suffer terribly on the track. Stravagante (age 3), Case Statement (age 2) and Sabre Tiger (age 2) are just three of the young horses who have died at Ascot in the last few years and just three of the estimated 400 horses who die every year on British racecourses.
Even if they don’t succumb to fatal injuries on the track, only a lucky few ex-champions are rewarded with happy retirements to green pastures at the end of their racing days. The rest end up forgotten and neglected or are sent to the abattoir and killed for cheap meat.
How many more deaths will it take before we call time on this disgraceful annual demonstration of national senselessness?
Please help hasten the end of this exploitative industry by encouraging your friends and family not to watch horse racing or gamble on animals’ lives. And join the conversation by posting your reaction to this cruelty with the hashtag #YouBetTheyDie.
One of the Queen’s horses, Guy Fawkes, has been killed at this year’s Royal Ascot after suffering fatal injuries during a race.
