Activists force halt to ‘Lamb National’ race

A “LAMB National” race has been cancelled by organisers following a backlash from animal rights activists.

The show features a flock of Herdwick sheep dressed in coloured silks, jumping over hurdles with toy monkey jockeys fastened on their backs, and has toured across England since 2012.

However, organisers of a carnival in Barton, North Lincs, say they have been forced to cancel its summer booking because of “abusive messages” sent to committee members.

Ben Troop, 39, chairman of the Barton Carnival, said: “We were getting a lot of abusive messages online and we weren’t prepared for the level of backlash that we were getting.

“Our committee are all volunteers so we do this alongside our full-time jobs and things were getting personal. We’re not even the only people locally to have the Lamb National and the feedback hasn’t seemed to have come from locals.

“We can guess it’s gone out on certain Facebook pages or groups and they’ve chosen to gang up against it and bombard us with messages, it’s a shame.”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) said the lambs could not “consent” to the races and the event was not much different from animals in a circus.

The race featured on a recording of BBC’S Countryfile, in 2017, and during Royal Ascot, in 2015, where it was warmly received by the King, who was then Prince of Wales, and the Queen, then Duchess of Cornwall.

Elisa Allen, Peta UK’S vice president of programmes, said: “It’s right that organisers cancel this spectacle, which would have subjected sensitive sheep to the stress of transport and treated these living, feeling beings as wind-up toys.”