Animal Aid campaigns peacefully against all animal abuse, and promotes a cruelty-free lifestyle.

EXPOSED! Racing industry's 'systematic horse exploitation, injury and destruction'

The chase after vast financial rewards by the global horse racing industry's dominant forces has led to over-production of a swift but physically weak Thoroughbred, according to a major new report, Bred To Death, published on 28 September by Animal Aid.

Many of the 'defective' newborns end up slaughtered for meat, while a significant proportion of those who do enter racing suffer a high level of fatal injuries and stress-related illnesses.

Two breeding operations now dominate the global horse racing industry - Darley and Coolmore. Between them they own more than 100 breeding stallions and produce about 10% of all Thoroughbreds in world racing. Their share of the closely-linked British and Irish racing scenes is even more worrying. Their stallions are mated with nearly half of the entire mare population in those countries.

Darley and Coolmore breed heavily from stallions descended from the 1960s North American flat racing champion runner, Northern Dancer. The Northern Dancer 'brand', reports Bred To Death, is today very saleable but the obsessive focus on this bloodline is leading to a dangerous level of inbreeding with all the attendant inherited weaknesses in the offspring.

[pr] Read our press release

[info] View Bred To Death
[pdf] Download Bred To Death report

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