Champion race jockey Ruby Walsh, who has twice won the Grand National, sparked controversy at the Cheltenham Festival as he suggested that racehorses are replaceable.
His comments came as horse Our Conor suffered a fatal fall in the main race of the day, the Champion Hurdle.
The 34-year-old Irishman said: ‘Horses are horses. You can replace a horse’.
Walsh, who reached a record 40 wins at the Festival, continued: ‘It’s sad, but horses are animals, outside your back door. Humans are humans. They are inside your back door.
‘You can replace a horse. You can’t replace a human being. That’s my feeling on it.’
The UK’s largest animal rights group Animal Aid points to Cheltenham as being the course on which more horses die than any other in the country.
According to the charity, 48 horses have lost their lives there since March 2007, with 15 deaths at the Festival. In 2012, five horses died in just two days.
Horse-racing consultant Dene Stansall who speaks for the charity said, “It’s completely disrespectful. To treat the death of a horse in such a way shows that they are merely machines for people to make money. Ruby Walsh is the leading jockey at Cheltenham and wants to support the event as much as he can, but you cannot disregard the lives of horses just because they are not humans.”
The British Horseracing Association said: “The welfare of the sport’s equine and human participants is paramount to British Horseracing and remains the over-riding priority for all those involved with the staging of the Cheltenham Festival. In the event of an incident on the racecourse any horse affected will receive immediate attention and treatment from the racecourse’s veterinary team.”