SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The British Racing Authority (BRA) has described the images published by The Daily Mirror of champion horse Wigmore Hall being euthanized as “distressing and insensitive”.
The seven year old horse broke a leg at Doncaster race track last week, on Saturday the Daily Mirror published images of the horse being shot in the head by an unnamed vet. The Daily Mirror claimed that it had obtained the images through animal rights group Animal Aid.
The BRA received support from the RSPCA, after the Daily Mirror chose to lead its front page on Saturday with a picture of a vet pointing a gun at the forehead of an injured racehorse.
Michael Bell trainer of Queen Elizabeth’s stable of race horses, slammed the newspapers actions labelling them as irresponsible and simply headline grabbing. Bell defended the Veterinarian teams actions
“The vets did an astounding job, they were on the scene in 30 seconds and they have to make an instant decision, sometimes it is better for them to deal with it quickly than let the horse suffer. The most important thing is the welfare of the horse”.
“I just don’t see the plus side of printing them, it is very distressing for us. After losing one of our favourites we then have to go through this”.
The Daily Mirror responded to criticism directed towards them by the horse racing community by stating the article wanted to put forward a balanced debate on treatment of horses in UK racing.
Lloyd Embley, Chief Editor of the Daily Mirror, commented on the publication of the images “The intention was to be as balanced as possible. In fact, two of the three opinion pieces we carried were in defence of horse racing,”
