Budweiser’s Iconic Super Bowl Clydesdales Mutilated by Beer King: PETA Exposé

For Immediate Release:
February 10, 2023

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

As Budweiser celebrates the 90^th anniversary of the “World-Famous Budweiser Clydesdales” and plans to parade the horses in Phoenix and Glendale, Arizona, over Super Bowl weekend and on game day, a new PETA investigation has revealed that the horses are painfully disfigured by the “King of Beers” for strictly cosmetic reasons. The crude mutilation involves severing part of the horse’s spine by amputating some or all tailbones or cutting off the blood supply with a tight band that prevents blood flow, eventually causing the tail to die and fall off.

Tailbone amputation for cosmetic reasons is condemned by the American Veterinary Medical Association and is illegal in 10 states and a number of countries. It causes chronic pain, affects the horse’s balance, and removes their first line of defense against biting and disease-spreading insects.

“Budweiser is the King of Tears for harming the Clydesdales for 90 years just for a brand image,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on Budweiser to stop mutilating horses immediately and recognize that they need their tails.”

PETA’s video reveals Budweiser and Anheuser-Busch representatives at their breeding and training facilities and at parades telling members of the public that the amputations are just a hair “trim”—but two admit to PETA’s investigators that the tailbones are severed.

PETA is rolling out a “tailgate” campaign against Budweiser that includes protesters who will march alongside a mobile billboard on the horses’ parade routes in Arizona; another mobile billboard that will circle Anheuser-Busch’s flagship brewery in St. Louis, where an iconic mural of the Clydesdales is being upgraded in celebration of the anniversary; a TV commercial; and an aerial banner that will fly over State Farm Stadium and nearby tailgating parties hosted by TV chefs Guy Fieri and Bobby Flay on Super Bowl Sunday.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. 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.