PETA TV Ad Exposes Budweiser’s Clydesdale Mutilations

For Immediate Release:
May 5, 2023

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

St. Louis –

Following the release of Budweiser’s ad suggesting mutilated Clydesdales honor the “American spirit,” PETA is coming out swinging for horses with a 30-second TV spot hitting local airwaves this weekend. The ad tears off the beer goggles and exposes the King of Tears for cruelly severing the famous Clydesdales’ tailbones—a practice that’s illegal in 10 states—just so they’ll look a certain way when pulling the beer wagons.

PETA’s damning video exposé revealed that Budweiser has been secretly amputating horses’ tailbones either with a scalpel or with a tight band that stops the blood supply to the tail, causing it to die and fall off—even though equines need their tails for balance and to protect themselves against biting and disease-spreading insects.

“Severing the tailbone, part of the lower spine, is cruelty to animals and leaves horses permanently disfigured,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA’s video urges viewers to defend the American value of human decency by demanding that Budweiser end its 90-year run of mutilating animals.”

PETA’s video will air on the following channels and dates.

KDSK-TV/NBC: Friday, May 5, during Today in St. Louis and during 5 on Your Side at 10 p.m.
KDNL-TV/ABC: Saturday, May 6, during the New York Knicks/Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors/Los Angeles Lakers NBA playoff games

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—notes that tailbone amputation for cosmetic reasons is condemned by the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Association of Equine Practitioners.

For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.