Great Yorkshire Show Rules that “Horses Must Have Tails”

It’s been over a year since the practice of shaving up to 90% of the tail off draft horses was brought to our attention, and since then, we’ve gained incredible support and awareness.

When it became clear that the Clydesdale Horse Society and Shire Horse Society wouldn’t budge on their stance that depriving horses of their natural tails wasn’t a welfare issue, we launched a government petition asking for the practice to be banned. The petition was picked up by some well positioned horse folk.

We were thrilled to learn that Amanda Stoddart-West, organiser of the Great Yorkshire Show (GYS), made the decision in February to ban the entry of horses without tails at the GYS! Along with this announcement in Horse & Hound our petition was also featured, and not long after, world renowned equine scientist Dr David Marlin took up our petition and shared it with his followers on social media, triggering an explosion of dialogue and awareness of the issue.

Since then, we’ve also heard back from the CEO of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST), where both Clydesdales and Shires are listed, who has stated that the RBST supports our stance on this and that horses should not be deprived of their tails for aesthetic purposes. As several Clydesdale owners have raised being on the endangered list as some backward reason to keep shaving tails, it’s great having the RBST on our side.

In the past few weeks I’ve written to the organisers of numerous big shows that are approaching, setting out the overwhelming support from equine welfare experts, and asking the organisers to follow the very sensible lead of the GYS and stop the entry of draft horses with shaved tails. In the horse section of the Scottish Farmers magazine, horseman Tom Best wrote an article on the subject, noting our petition, and his advice to the draft horse societies was  that "it's time to get ahead of the game and get your house in order”.

I was also miffed that Shire Horse Society CEO Victoria Clayton stated in articles that shaving the tails is entirely for the horse’s safety to keep it from getting caught in harnesses. I sent her another letter, including photos of 5- and 6-month-old Shire foals with shaved tails at a show last summer, asking how her explanation of “safety” applied to foals. Unsurprisingly there’s been no response.