PETA Slams Budweiser for Ad Suggesting Mutilated Horses Honor ‘American Spirit’

For Immediate Release:
April 16, 2023

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Below, please find a statement from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk in response to a new Budweiser advertisement featuring a Clydesdale horse whose tailbone—like many Clydesdales used by Budweiser—has been cruelly amputated:

“If Budweiser thinks “the American spirit” condones the needless mutilation of horses’ tails just to make them look a certain way, it is out of touch with public sentiment against cruelty to animals, and it knows full well that many U.S. states, including at least one featured in its commercial, have banned severing horses’ tailbones for cosmetic purposes. PETA is calling on the King of Tears to stop cutting into Clydesdales’ lower spines.”

As PETA recently revealed in a damning video exposé, Budweiser has been secretly severing 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. Tailbone amputation for cosmetic reasons is condemned by the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Association of Equine Practitioners and illegal in 10 states and a number of countries.

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.