Following the release of Animal Aid's annual report into horse racing, animal campaign groups and activists across the country have joined forces to call for a boycott of the Grand National at Aintree this weekend. 

Local activists will be outside William Hill in Kingston and other nearby bookmakers in Castle Street to highlight the suffering caused to horses and to call for a boycott of the Grand National. 

Further demonstrations against horse racing are taking place across the country this weekend, with a main protest at Aintree in Liverpool. 

Other events are taking place in Rochester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge, Nuneaton, Preston, Southampton, Halifax, Stoke on Trent and Bromley. 

Animal Aid's report reveals the scale of suffering experienced by horses in the UK and Ireland in 2025. 

It says that 254 horses were killed due to racing in 2025  and that there were 641 abuses of the whip beyond industry rules in 2025. 

It added that  811 horses with Weatherby passports were slaughtered in England in 2025. 

Animal Aid also operates 'Horse Death Watch' – a website that records the names of horses known to have died due to racing. 

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It said that more than 50 horses have died at the three-day Aintree festival since 2006. 

The most recent of these horses was thirteen-year-old Celebre D'Allen, who never recovered from the Grand National last year due to the severity of the Pleuropneumonia in his weakened physical state. "He was raced to death," says Animal Aid.

Campaign Manager at Animal Aid, Isobel McNally, said: "Horses being killed during races, or shortly after, is so normalised that race officials keep privacy screens by the side of racetracks. 

"This is what the public's viewership and betting contribute to; propping up a billion-pound industry that knowingly puts animals' lives in danger. Horses deserve so much better." 

New polling commissioned by Animal Aid and conducted by OnePoll in March 2026 shows clear public opposition to the use of animals in harmful sports. 

The findings reveal that 70 per cent agree that animals should not be included in sports that put them at increased risk of injury and that 60 per cent say they would support a ban on sports that result in animals dying.