Animal Trials by Endurance and Obstacle policy

The League considers a race or course of four and a half miles over large and difficult fences to be too long and gruelling for most horses. The high number of fatalities on the course at Aintree and as a result of having run in the Grand National, makes it clear that unnecessary suffering is being caused for sport. The League believes that horses should be used only in races and events that are well within their own capacity and that of their riders.

Hunting with hounds is often associated with riding to hounds. Where a horse is deliberately put at risk by being ridden at a dangerous obstacle or by an inexperienced rider, the League believes that it should be an offence to recklessly endanger that horse for sport or entertainment, and that animal welfare law should provide for prosecutions where horses are deliberately exposed to severe conditions for sport or in the furtherance of sport.