A billboard ad for a greyhound welfare pressure group, seen near Oxford Stadium racing track and featuring the headline ‘Cruelties Coming Home’, has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The poster featured an image of a collision in a greyhound race and claimed ‘over 40% of greyhounds DIE each year due to racing’.

The Greyhound Board of Great Britain and Oxford Stadium Ltd challenged whether the claim was misleading and could be substantiated.

The pressure group, Sighthound Welfare Ltd, said it expected readers to interpret the phrase ‘due to racing’ in the ad's claim as meaning that the quoted 40% figure reflected all greyhound deaths caused by the sport's existence, including the culling of dogs unfit to race as well as deaths caused by on-track injuries. 

The ASA ruled: “Because Sighthound Welfare Ltd had not substantiated the claim ‘over 40% of greyhounds DIE each year due to racing’ as it would be understood by readers of the ad, we concluded that it was misleading.

“The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Sighthound Welfare Ltd to ensure that future ads did not make claims about the percentage of greyhounds that died each year due to racing unless they held relevant adequate evidence to substantiate those claims.”

The full ASA ruling can be viewed by clicking here