Anyone considering betting on Cheltenham racing should stop and consider all the suffering behind this deadly event.

The festival has claimed 76 lives since 2000, including two on Tuesday. Among the victims are horses killed after suffering spinal and tendon injuries as well as broken legs, necks, back and shoulders. Others have simply collapsed and died.

Around half of the horses who will be whipped towards the finish line at this week's festival are from Ireland. Here, a death sentence hangs over horses who don't make the grade. Since 2016, 15,658 thoroughbreds have been mercilessly killed at Department of Agriculture-approved slaughterhouses. This includes 1,428 slaughtered in 2023.

Meanwhile, Irish racecourses have seen more than 1,000 fatalities over the past decade, with Horse Racing Ireland confirming the method of killing to be either lethal injection or a bullet in the head.

You bet they die. If you love horses, reject racing.

Watch the BBC Panorama documentary “The Dark Side of Horse Racing”
https://youtu.be/VlpQhJFd5Bo

Find out more about race horse deaths at
https://banbloodsports.wordpress.com/2021/08/19/horses-confirmed-dead-following-races-at-irish-racecourses/

Visit Animal Aid's Horse Death Watch websites
https://www.horsedeathwatch.com/
https://www.irishhorsedeathwatch.com/

Horse deaths at Irish racecourses

2023: 111 deaths
2022: 107 deaths
2021: 113 deaths
2020: 65 deaths
2019: 102 deaths
2018: 111 deaths
2017: 88 deaths
2016: 83 deaths
2015: 89 deaths
2014: 99 deaths
2013: 121 deaths
2012: 82 deaths

Thoroughbred horses slaughtered in Ireland

2023: 1,428
2022: 1,051
2021: 1,105
2020: 1,549
2019: 2,218
2018: 2,526
2017: 2,829
2016: 2,952

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