Ban all Horse Competitions from the Olympics

Horses are not Entertainers. They are used in competitive sports including, but not limited to, dressage, endurance riding, eventing, reining, show jumping, tent pegging, vaulting, polo, horse racing, driving, and rodeo.

Equestrian Eventing: The Olympics’ Most Dangerous Sport:
he cross country course design has become too challenging,” says Dene Stanstall, the horse consultant for U.K. non-profit Animal Aid. “They risk breaking the horses’ necks or backs. "Stanstall says a more direct focus on horse safety is needed. 'There is a moral question here. Is it sport to put horses lives in danger?

Organized welfare groups
criticised some horse sports with claims of animal cruelty.

Horse racing is a popular equestrian sport which is practiced in many nations around the world. It is inextricably associated with gambling, where in certain events, stakes can become very high. Despite its illegality in most competitions, these conditions of extreme competitiveness can lead to the use of performing-enhancing drugs and extreme training techniques, which can result in negative side effects for the horses' well-being. The races themselves have also proved dangerous to the horses – especially steeplechasing, which requires the horse to jump hurdles whilst galloping at full speed. This can result in injury or death to the horse, as well as the jockey. A study by animal welfare group Animal Aid revealed that approximately 375 racehorses die yearly, with 30% of these either during or as a result of injuries from a race. The report also highlighted the increasing frequency of race-related illnesses, including bleeding lungs (exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage) and gastric ulcers.

Animal rights groups are also primarily concerned that certain sports or training exercises may cause unnecessary pain or injuries to horse athletes. Some specific training or showing practices are so widely condemned that they have been made illegal at the national level and violations can incur criminal penalties. The most well-known is soring, a practice of applying a caustic ointment just above the hooves of a Tennessee Walking Horse to make it pick up its feet higher. However, in spite of a federal law in the United States prohibiting this practice and routine inspections of horse shows by inspectors from the United States Department of Agriculture, soring is still widespread and difficult to eliminate. Some events themselves are also considered so abusive that they are banned in many countries. Among these are horse-tripping, a sport where riders chase and rope a loose-running horse by its front legs, throwing it to the ground.

Secondary effects of racing have also recently been uncovered. A 2006 investigation by The Observer in the UK found that each year 6,000–10,000 horses are slaughtered for consumption abroad, a significant proportion of which are horses bred for racing. A boom in the number of foals bred has meant that there is not adequate resources to care for unwanted horses. Demand has increased for this massive breeding programme to be scaled back. Despite over 1000 foals being produced annually by the industry, 66% of those bred for such a purpose were never entered into a race, and despite a life expectancy of 30 years, many are killed before their fifth birthday.

We urge the International Olympic Commitee to ban all Horse competitions from the Olympic Games.
We urge the Governments to stop using Horses for Entertainment and Sports.

Sincerely,