It’s that time of year again. This week, the Grand National festival is underway at Aintree. Behind the circus, the “green screens” are ready to hide injured horses from view, while the industry repeats its familiar lines about welfare and safety.
Over the next few days, hundreds of horses will be whipped and raced for profit - or, as the industry calls it, entertainment. Some will pull up injured, visibly or not. Others will keep running through pain, only to be quietly removed from the spotlight, never to be seen again. Some will die on the track, behind those hastily assembled screens.
This is a brutal industry - on average, a horse dies every other day on a British racetrack.
At the heart of the festival, the Grand National race on Saturday, the chances of severe injury are high, given the difficulty and danger of the course.
When the Industry Is Exposed, It Changes
In 2023, Animal Rising was joined by over 100 people in disrupting the Grand National, delaying the race and forcing the issue of horse welfare into the national spotlight. For the first time, the industry could not control the narrative, and suddenly everyone was talking about horse racing - and why so many people were willing to risk arrest to halt a race.
As a result of this new media scrutiny, new safety measures for the Grand National race and the industry as a whole were put into place. They don’t go far enough.
Just last year, two horses lost their lives due to the festival - including 13-year-old Celebre D’Allen, who was pushed into a leading position during the Grand National only to collapse before the finish line. He died two days later. The industry claimed his death was due to a “post-race infection”, attempting to distance it from the race itself.
Their supposed reforms are little more than a glossy attempt to protect the industry’s image. But they also show that pressure is forcing change. For the first time, the racing industry is feeling sustained scrutiny over the harm it causes, and altering decades-old practices as a result.
A National Disgrace: The Facts They Can’t Hide
A hard-hitting new report, National Disgrace, co-authored by two of those who were charged for joining us in delaying the 2023 Grand National action, has just been released. The data is a damning indictment of an industry in dire straits:
54% of the public now agree that the Grand National is “cruel to horses“; the National Disgrace report states that public support is shifting rapidly as awareness grows.
A Spectacle of Survival: Only 47% of horses have even finished the main Grand National race over the last five years. It isn’t a race; it’s a feat of survival where the odds are stacked against the horses.
The Deadly Meeting: Since 2000, 67 horses have died at the Aintree meeting. The industry calls it “unacceptable,” yet they statistically expect to cart away dead horses every single year.
Routine Abuse: Last year alone saw 509 whip offences across UK racecourses. There is no “welfare-led” way to force a horse to run to the point of exhaustion through pain and fear.
These abuses are not isolated incidents - they are patterns repeated year after year.
We Are Winning the Argument
Since that day in 2023, when over 100 people were arrested trying to protect horses’ lives, the legal landscape has begun to shift. In late 2025, three successive juries refused to convict our campaigners, with two unanimous “Not Guilty” verdicts and a hung jury. The CPS was forced to drop the remaining public nuisance charges, recognising that juries were no longer willing to criminalise people standing up for horses.
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The social licence for animal racing is expiring. Just last month, both Wales and Scotland banned greyhound racing following sustained public and political pressure over animal welfare. Horse racing is primed to be next - but only if we keep the pressure on.
What Comes Next: The Aintree 8
While we celebrate these victories, the fight isn’t over. This November, eight campaigners face trial at Liverpool Crown Court for their roles in the 2023 Grand National disruption, charged with Conspiracy to Cause a Public Nuisance and risking prison sentences of up to ten years if found guilty.
If you want to support them - and help ensure this issue continues to be exposed - you can contribute here.
This week at Aintree, horses are still being pushed to their limits for profit and spectacle, bearing the cost in injuries, exhaustion, and sometimes their lives. For them, there is no choice - only the course ahead.
Only by continuing to expose this cruelty can we bring it to an end - and that change is already underway.
For the horses,
Animal Rising
“The next faller at these unsurmountable jumps may just be the racecourse itself.” — National Disgrace Report, 2026
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