DEAR Editor – Anyone who bets on the Grand National – whether personally, via a sweepstake, or through an offer of a free bet pushed by bookmakers – is gambling on horses’ lives and will have blood on their hands if any of these wonderful, gentle animals die.

Horses are pushed to – and often past –breaking point in this greedy and ghastly spectacle, which is a stain on the UK’s reputation as an animal-loving nation. Show compassion, too, to the horses who survive the race but are no longer profitable because of illness, injury, or age: they often end up hung upside down at the slaughterhouse.

There is no such thing as a harmless flutter, because as long as punters continue to stoke the fire, horses will get burned in the Grand National.

Jennifer White

Peta Foundation