Transcript BBC Radio Surrey, Interview with Ben Newman, 2 June 2023
Speaker 1
Thanks to Ben Newman from the Animal Rising group. First of all, Ben, good morning. Thank you for joining us.
Ben Newman
Good morning. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1
Erm, there s an injunction to prevent a repeat of what happened at the Grand National, so um are your plans still gonna go ahead? Yes. So after the Gr- yes so after the Grand National um people left crying er and the whole country was shocked. And really, they lost the argument, and now they have brought out er some private laws, which are quite concerning, the use of injunctions. Erm but yes, the protest will still be going ahead, yes.
Ben Newman
Speaker 1
Erm you mentioned you y planning disruption between races. So tell us about that?
Ben Newman
Erm so there is two things going on there, there's one there protest erm family fun family friendly protest out the front, er which invites anyone to go down to, and also some people will be er - getting on the tracks er and er disrupting the race, and you know maybe delaying it for a bit, but I do think it is the erm yep So sorry, can I just clarify the the second part you talked about, is that going to happen between races or during races?
Speaker 1
Ben Newman
Oh, no one is going to be running in front of horses for the running, no
Speaker 1
You said it would be up to the race organisers to decide whether a race is actually safe to run, er however. So, so what does that mean? Erm so if the if the h- if the w- the, and erm sorry, I did say that, but I mean they they can decide to run the race. If the race seems unsafe, they certainly should run the race, no. Erm so.. so fr- from your point of view, what what actually declares as a race safe to run then, if if you are going to be protesting at the same time? , if the horses are skittish or anything like that, but I mean, I, I do not actually host. I do not actually host horse races, but I would say all horse races all horse races are not safe for horses, and that is the whole point of this of this protest, it or at least part of the point is is that a- you may have seen at the Grand National, a horse went over the first jump, died and broke their neck on the spot. So horse racing is not safe to horses at all, and and that is the point, that we are treating them like property and and making them run. So so our position is that it is not safe for horses to run the race at all, hence why we are trying to stop it. Where we have the the
Ben Newman
Speaker 1
Ben Newman
Speaker 1
Erm how er confident are you that your actions
put the horses in danger as well?
Ben Newman
Well, we are doing it for two reasons, and one is to to stop the horses running. So in the case of the Grand National, for example, that that is the most recent example. Three horses died that that erm that weekend and the first horse went over and died as soon as as soon as the race started, a horse died. It is shocking, erm but we are also doing it to create erm a massive erm conversation and and we did create that. So for example,
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