We’re going full steam ahead with our efforts to permanently ban horse-drawn carriage rides in New York, and the latest high profile New Yorker to sign on to the campaign is Lea Michele, the beautiful star of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Spring Awakening. Here’s what she said about her decision to do this ad on behalf of New York’s carriage horses:

"These horses are forced to work long hours in extreme weather conditions, all while walking on hard pavement and inhaling exhaust fumes. As a New Yorker, I know how tough it can be to navigate the city streets, and that's on two feet! When I see the horses attached to carriages and made to pull heavy loads in traffic, it makes me sad and angry. I want tourists to know that long after their rides are up, these horses’ miserable lives continue, day in and day out."

Thank you, Lea! I’ve posted the new ad below, and you can learn more about the campaign here.

Click for a larger version

To check out the archives of past strips, click here.

I don’t usually make a point of singling out certain comments on this blog, but there were enough people who made statements along the lines of “But horses are born to race. That’s what they love,” or, like, “They’re treated better than most humans,” that I figured it was worth pointing out a few more things about the horseracing industry, which, like any industry which depends on animal domination and exploitation, will try to get away with any abusive or neglectful practice that might make them an extra dime. And the real victims—Eight Belles and the thousands of less famous horses who died under similar circumstances or else were shipped off to Europe for human consumption—live miserable lives and die painful deaths.

Here are a few key points about how this works, and there’s lots more info on this horseracing factsheet:

1. Nobody “loves to run” when they’re suffering from bleeding lungs or painful leg injuries, but that doesn’t stop trainers from pumping these animals full of drugs to mask the pain, enhance their performance and just plain keep them going. We are getting calls and faxes about all kinds of cocktail mixes that "are common knowledge in the back stretch." Sometimes people are caught and suspended when they’re careless—as was the case with this veterinarian who got busted for injecting cobra venom into a horse as a nerve blocking agent. For real.
2. Why was Eight Belles so fragile? Well, horses begin training when their skeletal systems are still growing, and they’re completely unable to deal with pounding their limbs into jelly on a hard track at high speeds. Don't tell me that all those people who "really know about horses" didn't have an inkling that this filly - a filly, no less - was a high risk for serious injuries like the ones she sustained. But she was raced anyway. Any gue$$es as to why?
3. As I mentioned before, horses that don’t make the cut get shipped off to slaughterhouses. The fact that anybody who knows this would still have the gall to comment on this blog saying that these animals are “treated better than most humans” is just too depressing to even think about.

For better or for worse, Eight Belles is now a very public representative of an industry that’s rotten to its rotten core. My only hope is that people will keep looking deeper into the way these horses are treated. And don’t dare try and tell me that they like it.

Those wily British counterparts of mine just won’t stop pushing the envelope. I wrote last week with some pride about how their “Feeding Kids Meat Is Child Abuse” ad made the BBC’s top 10 most controversial ads list—well, according to The Guardian, they’re at it again! Apparently there have been complaints about the anti-KFC ad pictured below. Some nannies are worried (not kidding) that it “breaches the advertising code's stipulations on responsible advertising, decency and causing fear and distress.” A couple of points here: 1) I’ll admit that the prospect of KFC slicing up defenseless animals is both frightening and distressing, but surely that’s KFC’s fault, no? 2) As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk told the journalist who wrote the Guardian piece about this ad: "The cartoon image of Colonel Sanders killing a chicken on our leaflet is obviously a caricature - a comic. We cannot imagine that our leaflet would provoke fear in anyone unless the reader was a chicken." ‘Nuff said.

Following the shocking death of the horse that Senator Hillary Clinton publicly bet on in the Kentucky Derby, PETA has asked her to denounce this dirty “sport.”

In a letter to the Senator today, PETA’s president pointed out that Eight Belles was fiercely whipped in the final stretch just before the bone in her ankles broke through her skin and she crashed to the ground. Given that the joints of the young horses used in these races are not yet fully formed, this kind of accident is inevitable, and the expressions of surprise about this incident from within the horseracing industry are utterly fake. In her letter to the Senator—which points out that Eight Belles is just one out of a long list of horses who have broken their legs and had to be killed throughout the history of the Triple Crown and the hundreds more who die every year in the horseracing industry—PETA’s president writes:

“Attending the Derby is as despicable as attending a dogfight. For most—not a few—of the horses you see will not end up put out to pasture on a beautiful ranch but will be sent overseas to be slaughtered for someone's dinner plate. At some point, all horses stop winning.”

The letter asks Clinton to withdraw her public support of horseracing, and condemn the cruel “sport” instead.

I should point out here that PETA is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to stopping the exploitation and abuse of animals. PETA's condemnation of Hillary Clinton for betting on horses and its request that she denounce horseracing are in no way intended as intervention in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for political office.

Here’s the letter:

Dear Senator Clinton:

As a high profile political figure with the esteem of many women, I regret to say that your public support of horseracing—and specifically betting on Eight Belles—makes you culpable in her destruction. I ask you now to publicly condemn races like the Kentucky Derby. Eight Belles ran for her life and was fiercely whipped as she came down that final stretch when she was no doubt in a great deal of pain. We cannot call ourselves a civilized nation if we allow any living being to endure such abuse.

Races like this are the equivalent of child sweatshops. These are not even seasoned horses: They are young fillies and colts whose joints are not formed enough to endure such a grueling race. Despite this, they are pushed beyond their limits. The Triple Crown and other major horse races have become the graveyards of too many horses who were called champions. For example, Go For Wand, who went down in the 1990 Breeders' Cup Distaff and then stumbled up and tried to keep running with her broken leg dangling; Union City, who fractured a leg in the 1993 Preakness and was destroyed; Prairie Bayou, who that same year suffered a compound fracture in the Belmont Stakes and had to be destroyed; George Washington, who was euthanized after breaking his leg while running the Preakness last year; and of course Barbaro, the "poster horse" of the racing industry's failures and excesses, who despite efforts could not be saved from the injuries sustained during the 2006 Preakness. Barbaro's injuries were terrible—fractures of his canon bone, sesamoids, and long pastern as well as the dislocation of the fetlock joint. These are just a few of the horses we hear about—they are the winners, the horses who run the big races. Hundreds of horses meet the same painful, deadly fate every year in the horseracing industry. A race track is not a place for a fun day out, and we are writing to Chelsea on that score. Attending the Derby is as despicable as attending a dogfight. For most—not a few—of the horses you see will not end up put out to pasture on a beautiful ranch but will be sent overseas to be slaughtered for someone's dinner plate. At some point, all horses stop winning.

PETA takes no position on whether you win or lose the race you are in, but we call on you to publicly reject betting on such hideous spectacles of domination over wonderful animals who deserve more than pain and death for human profit and amusement.

Very truly yours,

Ingrid E. Newkirk
President

This morning, PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk sent a letter to the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority proposing changes in the rules that would result in a drastic reduction of the types of injuries that claimed the life of Eight Belles in the running of the Kentucky Derby. The maudlin expressions of regret and sadness over the Eight Belles incident that we’re hearing from people within the industry are ringing pretty hollow right now. If they genuinely want to do something to try and prevent incidents like this in the future, they can start with the following:

• Suspend the jockey and bar the trainer from racing other horses
• Thoroughbreds under the age of three should not be permitted to race
• Synthetic surfaces or grass turf—which result in dramatically fewer injuries—should be mandated at all racecourses
• The number of races that horses run in a season should be limited
• Whipping should be banned

You can read PETA’s letter here. I’ll keep you posted.

Update: And we’ve got pics! Lemme know which design you like best for the suggested memorial.

After 122 years in business, the world's largest stockyard closed down last month, holding their very last livestock auction in front of a nostalgic crowd on April 11. After we had finished celebrating here in the office, we decided that, much as one might like to forget them, the actions of South St. Paul Stockyards—where around 300 million cows have been poked, prodded, kicked, and dragged to their deaths in the last century—need to be commemorated. Today, we sent a letter to Greg Miller—president of Interstate Partners, the company that plans to redevelop the stockyard property—urging him to erect a memorial to the animals who passed through the stockyard's gates. As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk puts it:

"Millions of cows were bought and sold at South St. Paul Stockyards with no more regard for their feelings than if they were made of tin. At the very least, they deserve a stone or plinth that helps people remember the suffering the animals endured on their way to people's dinner tables."

You can read PETA’s letter to Greg Miller here. I’ll let you know if we get a response.

This young filly's death may have been humane, but the race sure wasn't. PETA is calling for the immediate suspension of jockey Gabriel Saez—who whipped Eight Belles mercilessly as she came down the final stretch, no doubt in agony from two front legs that were about to snap.

While the trainers, jockeys, and owners may weep their crocodile tears today over Eight Belles' euthanasia, they will be back on the track tomorrow, putting other horses at risk. Thoroughbreds are raced on hard dirt surfaces—like the one at Churchill Downs. Their bones simply can't take it, as Eight Belles' two broken front legs showed last night. Despite the wealth associated with thoroughbred racing, for the horses—most of whom end up broken, cast off, or sent to Europe to be killed for the dinner table—it's a dirty business and no better than dogfighting.

But the thing that should be really remarkable for most people reading this story is not the fact that New York has banned electrocution—but the implication that this is still legal everywhere else. That’s right. New York is now the only state where anally and genitally electrocuting fur-bearing animals (fur farmers do it this way so they won’t damage the pelts) could get you into trouble.

As my friend Melissa put it when she was interviewed for the AP piece, "Anal electrocution is common practice in fur farms across the world. A lot of these methods aren't effective and these animals will wake up while they are being skinned."

That’s all. I just wanted to drive home that point. It’s awesome that New York is leading the way here, and hopefully other states will soon follow suit. But this is also a good opportunity to store away that little tidbit about anal and genital electrocution being 100 percent legal in 49 out of 50 states—just in case anyone ever tries to tell you that wearing fur is anything other than reprehensible.

This ad, along with details on a hotline that whistleblowers who witness abuse on movie sets can call, appeared in Variety magazine this week

A while back a whistleblower from the set of Speed Racer reported that one of the chimpanzees used to play Speed Racer’s sidekick, Chim Chim, was beaten during filming and bit a human actor. The Speed Racer movie is coming out next week, and while the industry’s fleeting attention is attuned to the issue of animal abuse in Hollywood—especially after a bear used in the recent Will Ferrell movie attacked and killed his trainer—we figured now was the perfect time to encourage Hollywood insiders to speak up when they see abuse. Because nobody else is doing it right now.

A full-page ad prominently placed in yesterday's Variety magazine calls on Hollywood insiders who witness or suspect animal abuse in the production of a movie to immediately report the incident to PETA via a special hotline. Here’s what PETA Director Debbie Leahy told the media:

"Beating and shocking great apes who are used as 'actors' is the rule—not the exception. We're urging anyone involved in any facet of film production who has witnessed or suspects animal abuse to report it to PETA immediately."

The story’s been making its way around the blogosphere today. There’s a good write-up on Deadline Hollywood Daily, and there’s tons more info on our campaign to prevent animals from being abused behind the scenes in movies and on TV on our cleverly titled “No More Monkey Business” website.

P.S. Check out the sweet article about the issue on HuffPo.

P.P.S. You can tell Warner Bros. that you’re boycotting their Speed Racer movie through this webform.

1. When a Russian tycoon gave Mariah Carey a pair of outrageously expensive fur coats in a misguided attempt to show her what a big fan he was, she immediately donated the coats to PETA for us to give to the homeless. Roughly around the same time, Madonna was photographed trouncing around London in about $70,000 worth of dead chinchillas.
2. A whole lot more people are buying Mariah’s new album than are buying Madonna’s. Which kind of settles it, just in case my first point didn’t do the trick for you.

So there you have it. The forces of good prevail, while the groovy soundtrack of “Touch My Body” plays in the background. If you know of any other Diva competitions that need a’refereeing, just let me know. I’m always happy to help out.

Image credits: DailyMail, the-planets / CC