Euroviews. Two further deaths at the Grand National are a stark reminder that cruel horse races must end

Each April, more than 150,000 people attend an event that celebrates horse deaths. 

Of course, the promoters don’t frame the Grand National Festival this way, but let’s call it what it is: just another event where horses are exploited for profit. 

Inevitably, this year was no different. Two horses suffered fatal — and completely avoidable — injuries. 

Yet again, blood is on the hands of everyone involved in the event’s organisation or who attended the three-day meeting at Aintree, and yet again, we’re reminded that horse racing needs to end.

The Grand National meeting is one of the deadliest in the British racing calendar — it has claimed the lives of 65 horses since 2000. 

From shattered knees and injuries sustained in collisions that result in euthanasia to broken necks and horses collapsing shortly after a race, Aintree is notorious for nauseating death scenes. 

But no matter where it happens, all horse racing is cruel and shameful. Since 2007, over 2,500 horses have died in UK horse racing events and thousands more have been sent to slaughter, often so their flesh can be turned into food.

Horses are intelligent, sensitive individuals, and at these cruel events, they are literally raced to death out of greed. 

Horses who survive are often left limping on damaged legs or bleeding from their noses due to lung damage. Meanwhile, punters revel in the cheap thrill of making a bet, jockeys hold trophies aloft, and trainers tally up their prize money. 

Those who are injured to the point of no longer being able to race are considered no longer valuable and will be shot before the champagne corks have even been popped.

The event has long been under pressure to reform, owing to the ever-rising death toll, and this year was its first