Green Leader Polanski Calls For Horse Racing To Be Banned

Zack Polanski has been criticised for demanding that horse racing be banned on animal cruelty grounds.

As the country readies for the Grand National this weekend, the Green Party leader was accused of ranting ‘cranky nonsense’ about a sport worth £4 billion to the economy.

The vegan leftwinger is a long-standing critic of all forms of racing, moaning on social media in 2024 that the Aintree showpiece combined ‘gambling and animal cruelty’ as he criticised a Labour MP for placing a bet.

Three years earlier, on the eve of the 2021 Grand National, he wrote: ‘There’s something deeply wrong with society when this is considered a sport. 

‘We need to ban horse racing – and indeed all forms of animal cruelty.’

But it comes at a time when the party is less keen on banning things like hard drugs, with a policy of legalising cocaine and heroin. 

Tory Shadow Culture Secretary Nigel Huddleston said: ‘Zack Polanski’s call to ban our £4 billion horse racing industry is completely out of touch with a key pillar and economic driver of rural life.

‘This would put thousands of jobs at risk at a time when unemployment is rising thanks to this dreadful Labour Government.’

It also comes as Greens privately worry that Mr Polanski’s focus on matters like trans rights and Gaza is putting off longstanding members who want a focus on the environment. 

A source told the Times: ‘We’ve always recognised that we need to not come across as a single issue party to have a wide base of support.

‘But I think at a time when one of our the government’s many errors is the attacks on nature protections that we’re seeing, we could be being a lot more vocal about that.’ 

According to the British Horseracing Authority, the sport supports 85,000 jobs across the UK. 

The Grand National alone contributes £60 million to the Merseyside economy.

The Princess Royal, 75, was pictured in a VIP box, and other celebs in attendance on the first day of the meeting yesterday included former England footballers Michael Owen and Bryan Robson, and ex-Olympic hockey player Sam Quek. 

About eight million people are anticipated to have a flutter on the famous four-mile steeplechase, with many choosing to put money on a namesake horse or one named after a family member. 

Before Mr Polanski became leader last year, the Green Party campaigned at the 2024 General Election, saying it would ‘push for ending the exploitation of animals, including horses and greyhounds in racing’.

Because horse racing involves physical hazards, forced training, and the exploitation of horses for human amusement, it may be deemed a cruel sport. This applies to Greyhound racing as well.

Racehorses face a significant risk of injury and death, and studies show that in flat racing, approximately one horse dies per 1,000 starts, while jump races like the Grand National and Cheltenham Festival have higher fatality rates, with hundreds of horses dying annually in the UK alone.

Common injuries include bone fractures, soft tissue injury, and exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage, which can be deadly or necessitate euthanasia, and many horses also suffer from weariness and lameness owing to the very physical demands of racing.

Horses are often whipped during races to enhance performance, which causes pain and can lead to injury. Even padded whips are recognised to inflict suffering, but the rules on whips are frequently violated.

Horses are forced to run regardless of their physical or mental readiness, and they can start training them as early as one year old and racing at two, before their bodies are even fully developed.

It is inhumane to use any animal for amusement, but then I suppose in that context we shouldn’t slaughter animals; the only difference is we kill animals to survive, not for amusement.

During the war, my great-grandmother used to keep chickens in her yard because there was rationing. She used to do this by snapping its neck because they were told it was the most humane way to do it. I personally couldn’t kill anything – I would definitely go hungry! But yes, I do eat meat, but I couldn’t kill an animal, and I have been the owner of dogs and cats, but I would never dream of teaching them tricks for my amusement.

However, consuming meat for food has been part of human diets for at least 7 million years, with evidence of slaughter and meat consumption among early hominins dating back to 2.6 million years ago.

This dietary shift was probably influenced by the need for increased energy intake and the growth of larger brains, which is thought to have played a vital role in human development.

Of course, thoroughbred horses are born to run, but they also graze with other horses. Animals are not for entertainment, and they should be treated with respect.

The thing is, if you start putting prohibitions on things, then you have to put bans on a lot of things, like drugs, but then we could also argue that drugs have been used for over 13,000 years, with evidence of cannabis and opium use discovered in archaeological sites dating back to the 11th century BCE. This suggests that the use of various psychoactive substances has been part of human culture for a very long time, with the earliest signs of drug use discovered in a cave in Mount Carmel, Israel.