Racing Industry Rejects Accusations of 'horrific' Experiments on Horses

The horse racing industry has been criticised for funding allegedly "painful and often lethal" laboratory experiments on horses in a report from Animal Aid, an anti-cruelty campaigning group.

Exposure of the vivisection techniques is the group's latest salvo against the multimillion pound sport.

The report, A Dead Cert, details a series of experiments in which it claims horses have been infected with viruses, pregnant animals have undergone abdominal surgery before aborting their young, and newborn foals have been subjected to stress experiments.

Andrew Tyler, Animal Aid's director, said: "The horrific experiments...are claimed to be for the greater good - a few horses suffer so that many can benefit. That formulation is morally corrupt. The high levels of injury and developmental problems these invasive experiments are supposed to address are the product of racing industry greed and callousness."

It claims many of the experiments are directly or indirectly funded by the Horserace Betting Levy Board.

The Newmarket-based veterinary charity, the Animal Health Trust, is singled out for criticism, while Cambridge University's equine fertility unit is reported to have carried out two of the 10 experiments featured.

Both organisations rejected Animal Aid's claims as absurd and said animal welfare was their overriding priority.

Professor 'Twink' Allen, of the fertility unit, said all the research at the equine fertility unit was carried out under Home Office licence. "Britain is the most closely regulated country in animal research - there is a hellish bureaucracy and we have to go through all kinds of hoops," he said. "I am a veterinary surgeon and so are two of my staff. We have a love for animals and wish to improve the lot of their lives."

He said his work included trying to discover why 14-15% of pregnancies are lost. "The criticisms are absurd and disgraceful. It distresses unknowing people and little old ladies who read it and tend to believe it - and it smears research badly."

The Animal Health Trust said Animal Aid's position was that experimentation on even a single animal was never justified. "The Animal Health Trust's primary role is to improve the health and welfare of companion animals," a spokeswoman said.

A spokeswoman for the Horserace Betting Levy Board said its funding of research was entirely concerned with the welfare of horses.

Research involving Home Office-licensed procedures would only be funded if it could be justified by independent veterinary advisers and was approved by an ethical review process at the university or research institute where it was taking place.