“This business does not currently meet Tripadvisor’s Animal Welfare Policy.” That warning now appears on Tripadvisor pages for racetracks across the world, including Churchill Downs, Del Mar Racing, Pimlico Race Course, Saratoga Race Course, Keeneland, Belmont Park, Ascot Racecourse, and Tokyo Racecourse.
That’s right: One of the world’s biggest travel platforms is telling visitors that forcing animals to race fails to meet basic welfare standards.
PETA has worked tirelessly for years exposing the dangers horses face on racetracks. After the filly Eight Belles was killed in the 2008 Kentucky Derby, PETA pushed the industry to confront the deaths it had long treated as business as usual. We have witnessed, documented, and exposed dozens of fatal breakdowns, including the collapse of 7-year-old Lost in Limbo, whose fall was edited out of Churchill Downs’ replay video in 2023—the year 12 horses died just in the weeks surrounding the Derby. This year, a PETA investigator filmed the catastrophic injury of the young colt Vino Subito before the Kentucky Derby. Churchill Downs apparently tried to hide the death, but the harrowing moment was viewed more than 5 million times after we released the video.
In 2025 in the U.S. alone, 365 horses died racing or training at the 41 racetracks covered by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority—an average of one horse each day. Other estimates put the total number of fatalities at all racetracks in the U.S. at three times that number.
The British Horseracing Authority has reportedly asked Tripadvisor to reconsider its recent move, but the global racing industry should focus on keeping horses safe—not hiding the warning signs from travelers.
People inside racing recognize what this move means. “If racing in the United States thinks PETA and Horse Racing Wrongs are the only people who feel this way, newsflash: they aren’t,” racing insider Jonathan Stettin wrote. “This isn’t PETA putting a warning on Saratoga’s page […] It is Tripadvisor, one of the largest travel platforms in the world.”
The public increasingly rejects industries that harm animals. Travelers don’t want circuses that force tigers to perform, marine parks that confine orcas in tiny tanks, or racetracks that push horses past their limits, drug them when they’re sore, and discard them when they stop making money. Please, never bet on, attend, or watch the races while the racing industry abuses, drugs, and kills horses.
The post Breaking: Racetracks Don’t Meet Tripadvisor’s Animal Welfare Standards appeared first on PETA.