Anheuser-Busch stops cutting tails off Clydesdale horses after activists claim the practice is cruel
Anheuser-Busch has stopped hacking the tails off its Clydesdale horses, which have been used in marketing for its Budweiser brand since 1933, following mounting pressures from animal rights activists who condemned the practice as cruel.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, better known as PETA, was behind the push to get Anheuser-Busch to keep the Clydesdales’ naturally long tails lengthy.
The group launched an investigation that revealed the St. Louis, Mo.-based beer producer not only amputated the horses’ tails — an extension of the spine that’s needed to protect the animals from biting insects, to balance and to communicate with other horses — but hacked them off in unethical ways.
“Budweiser is keeping an ugly secret,” PETA said in a video on the topic. “Before the beautiful horses are hitched to the beer wagon — when they’re still just foals — their tails are mutilated…just to give them a certain appearance.”
“Some or all of the tail is removed, either with a scalpel or with a tight band that cuts off the blood flow, causing the tail to die off,” PETA found.
Other hidden-camera clips showed Budweiser staffers insisting that the tails aren’t docked, but rather “just trimmed weekly.”
“They still have their tails. It’s just, they trim the hair,” one worker said.
A Clydesdale handler, however, revealed that the horses don’t actually have full tails. “I’m not exactly sure when Budweiser does it, but it’s typically when they’re pretty young,” the handler said in another undercover video.
Horsetail docking is illegal in 10 US states — including Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Washington — as well as countries such as Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the UK, and Belgium, where Anheuser-Busch’s corporate parent AB InBev is based.
AB InBev confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that Budweiser stopped amputating the horses’ tails this year, though it didn’t offer a time frame.
“The safety and well-being of our beloved Clydesdales is our top priority,” AB InBev told The Journal in a statement on Wednesday.
Representatives for Anheuser-Busch did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
PETA’s Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo told The Post: “PETA’s staff are cracking open some cold ones today to celebrate that Budweiser is cutting out the cruelty by agreeing to stop painfully severing horses’ tailbones. This victory comes after dozens of PETA protests, nationwide ad campaigns, and pleas from more than 121,000 concerned consumers, and it sends a message to other companies that animal abuse doesn’t sell.”
On Anheuser-Busch’s website, the beer brand boasts that its fleet of 250 Clydesdales — which have promoted Budweiser in holiday and Super Bowl commercials and parades since 1933 — travels across the country with a team of expert groomers for “at least 10 months out of the year.”
Another separate team is dedicated to overseeing the horses’ diet, which consists of as much as 60 pounds of hay and 30 gallons of water daily per Clydesdale.
During each appearance, a team of six Clydesdales carries a red, white, and gold beer wagon while donning a harness and collar that weighs in at approximately 130 pounds, Anheuser-Busch said.
The move to ban tail docking comes after the brewer has suffered a months-long culture war over its controversial Bud Light ad starring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Since Mulvaney’s social media campaign with America’s once-most popular beer went live on April 1, Bud Light lost its top spot to Mexican lager Modelo Especial.
The latest data from Bump Williams Consulting and Nielsen IQ also showed that Bud Light sales slumped 27% in the four-week period that ended in early September — indicating that the embattled beer continues to lose ground to rivals Modelo, Coors Light, and Yuengling.
