For Immediate Release, Friday 1 October 2021 

Animal advocates rejoice as jumps racing in SA meets its demise 

The Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses (CPR) welcomes the announcement of the end of jumps racing in South Australia.

“This is undoubtedly great news and will place Racing Victoria under greater pressure to do the same because blatant animal cruelty is no longer acceptable.” Said Elio Celotto, Campaign Director for CPR.

“We’ve been campaigning with Animal Liberation SA for a ban on jumps racing for the last 13 years and finally we’ve seen our hard work vindicated. Now it’s only a matter of time before Racing Victoria also comes to its senses and rids itself of one of the ugliest spectacles in horse racing -that is jumps racing.”

While Animal Liberation SA spokesperson Sally Sutton had this to say, “After more than 20 years of watching jumps racing play Russian Roulette with the lives of horses we are excited to finally be able to say the sport is now officially dead in SA.”

“While the racing industry is citing unpopularity of the sport for its demise, it needs to look at why its unpopular and the answer is because it’s blatant animal cruelty.”

“Years and years of statistics has repeatedly shown that despite the implementation of numerous safety changes, jumps racing cannot be made safe and as we have always claimed, the only way to make jumps racing safe is to get rid of it.”

Victoria is now the only state left that conducts jumps races.

“We’re very aware that despite it continuing in Victoria, there’s mounting pressure on Racing Victoria to do the same and rid itself of a very small part of its industry that attracts a disproportionate amount of negative media attention. If horse racing is to have any future at all, it must follow suit and as soon as possible.”

“At the end of the day, seeing horses regularly fall over jumps, injured and killed on a regular basis is not a sport, it’s blatant animal cruelty.”