5 Things to Do to Celebrate ‘No Grand National’ Day
As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, the organisers of the Grand National announced that they were cancelling the cruel spectacle this year. Here are five things you can do to celebrate the fact that no horses will get hurt in the event this year:
Watch the Virtual Grand National
The Virtual Grand National race will be broadcast on ITV on Saturday, 4 April. Computer-generated imagery and race algorithms will bring the experience of watching horse racing to hundreds of thousands of living rooms across the UK without harming any horses or causing any real injuries. We wholeheartedly support this initiative, which should permanently replace the real races.
Play Racing Games
Mario Kart, Crash Team Racing, or PETA US’ Kitten Squad – there are plenty of ways to race without hurting anyone in the process. And you and your friends can choose to compete, while horses exploited in the racing industry have no say in the matter.
Kitten Squad is free and available to download on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, and macOS. Play it, and set yourself challenges to race against the clock to stop animal abusers. Why not see just how quickly you can liberate orcas from marine-park prisons?
Share the Truth About the Horse-Racing Industry
The horse-racing industry is a nightmare for the gentle animals who are forced to run around hazardous courses, and the Grand National is one of the deadliest Thoroughbred races in the world.
The high risk factor is what makes it famous, but every year, horses pay with their lives, sustaining horrific and often fatal injuries at notorious fences such as The Chair, Becher’s Brook, and the Canal Turn. Every time horses are forced to jump these excessively high obstacles, it puts tremendous pressure on their slender front legs, making accidents inevitable.
Horses have died at the Grand National Festival in 17 out of the last 19 years.
Share this blog post to show others why the Grand National is a national disgrace – and why all horse racing must stop:
Watch Videos
There are plenty of videos online showing what really occurs behind the scenes before, during, and after horse races – and even what takes place in plain sight when the animals fall and are fatally injured on the course. Here are a couple to begin with. Watch them right now, and share them with your friends:
Help Horses
The Grand National Festival won’t go ahead this year, but we need to take action to help horses who may still be forced to race in 2021. This cruel spectacle puts a nation that claims to care about horses to shame, and if it weren’t for the COVID-19 outbreak, ITV would still be broadcasting it.
By airing and promoting the Grand National in previous years and planning to continue doing so for years to come, ITV is complicit in animal abuse and suffering. Please take a stand for horses today and ask ITV Chair Sir Peter Bazalgette not to broadcast this cruel event in the future:
