For Immediate Release:
September 6, 2023
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Goshen, N.Y. – Although tailbone amputation for cosmetic reasons is condemned by the American Veterinary Medical Association and is illegal in 10 states and a number of countries, the Budweiser Clydesdale horses have been subjected to this cruel procedure—and they are scheduled to appear at the Goshen Historic Track tomorrow. This morning, PETA rushed a letter to the harness racing park’s president, Steve Jones, urging him to reconsider hosting the horses until Anheuser-Busch (which owns Budweiser) commits to ending the mutilations, which prevent horses from engaging in natural activities like swatting away disease-carrying flies and using their tails to communicate.
Disfigured Clydesdales hitched to a Budweiser beer wagon. Photo: PETA.
As revealed by a new PETA investigation, agitated Budweiser Clydesdales at a breeding facility owned by Anheuser-Busch uselessly flick the remnants of their amputated tails as they try in vain to brush away biting insects under the hot sun. The footage follows PETA’s initial video exposé detailing how Budweiser severs the horses’ tailbones—either with a scalpel or with a tight band that stops the blood supply to the tail, causing it to die and fall off—just so the Clydesdales will look a certain way when hitched to a beer wagon.
“The New York horse racing industry is already under scrutiny for drugs and deaths—it shouldn’t host disfigured Clydesdales on top of this,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “Instead, we urge Steve Jones to speak with Anheuser-Busch executives and urge them to discontinue tailbone severing and cancel the upcoming scheduled appearance.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.
