Get Schweppes out of the Melbourne Cup

The Melbourne Cup is a grotesque festival of animal cruelty, consumerism, alcoholism, and gambling, resulting in harm to animals and society. Year after year, we see the painful deaths and horrible suffering of horses at the hands of the brutal racing industry.

Sponsoring all this horror is your Schweppes lemonade.

Schweppes Australia is a loud sponsor of the Melbourne Cup Carnival. Its very own Schweppervescence Plate race will be run on Cup day. Even more disturbingly, this race is for 3 year old horses, despite horses’ bodies not being skeletally mature until five years of age.

A …

The Melbourne Cup is a grotesque festival of animal cruelty, consumerism, alcoholism, and gambling, resulting in harm to animals and society. Year after year, we see the painful deaths and horrible suffering of horses at the hands of the brutal racing industry.

Sponsoring all this horror is your Schweppes lemonade.

Schweppes Australia is a loud sponsor of the Melbourne Cup Carnival. Its very own Schweppervescence Plate race will be run on Cup day. Even more disturbingly, this race is for 3 year old horses, despite horses’ bodies not being skeletally mature until five years of age.

A horse is killed on Australian racetracks every 2 days from racing-related injuries. This does not even account for the thousands killed off the track and the horses that disappear from the records each year.

In the past year, on the very same days where Schweppes sponsored races, three horses were killed on Australian racetracks:

On 18 April 2026, 6 year old Suspicious Time died from a heart attack.
On 11 April 2026, 8 year old Kerman Rock collapsed and died after passing the finish line.
On 4 November 2025, 4 year old Rothfury suffered a catastrophic injury and was subsequently killed in front of racegoers.

In 2015, Schweppes Australia showed courage and compassion in its decision to completely cut ties with the greyhound racing industry. At the time they said they were ‘shocked and appalled’ by the cruelty. The same courage and compassion must be shown again for horses.

Together with the Coalition for Protection of Racehorses, Greens spokesperson for Animal Welfare, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, has written to Schweppes Australia and their parent company, Asahi Beverages, urging them to drop their sponsorship of the Melbourne Cup Carnival.

And you can join this campaign by doing the same. Let’s shut down the horse racing industry for good.

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Email Schweppes Australia and Asahi Beverages

We need your help to build public pressure on Schweppes Australia to end their sponsorship of the Melbourne Cup Carnival.

You can send an email to Schweppes Australia, and their parent company Asahi Beverages, demanding they ditch their sponsorship of the Melbourne Cup and let them know that there is never an excuse for animal abuse.

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Dear Schweppes Australia,

Re: Schweppes Australia must end its sponsorship of the Melbourne Cup Carnival
 
There is nothing refreshing about animal cruelty

I am writing to ask you to end your sponsorship of animal cruelty and cut ties with horse racing. In Australia, a horse is killed from racing every 2-3 days. I don’t support horses being whipped and forced to risk their lives to protect gambling profits, and neither should you.

Over the past year, on the very same days where Schweppes sponsored races, three horses were killed on Australian racetracks. On 18 April 2026, 6 year old Suspicious Time died from a heart attack. On 11 April 2026, 8 year old Kerman Rock collapsed and died after passing the finish line. On 4 November 2025, 4 year old Rothfury suffered a catastrophic injury and was subsequently killed in front of racegoers.

These deaths are not outliers, they are inevitable in horse racing.

In 2015, Schweppes ended its sponsorship of the greyhound racing industry due to the exposure of animal cruelty. If you were ‘shocked and appalled’ by the cruelty exposed then, I cannot understand your decision to continue supporting horse racing when there is clear evidence of systemic abuse and inherent cruelty.

I ask you to show the same courage and compassion when it comes to horses.
 
It’s also not only the horses who suffer from racing. Gambling has severe social consequences, with over 3 million Australians engaged in harmful gambling. On top of this, amidst a national crisis of family violence, police and emergency departments record significant spikes in family violence and assaults on major race days such as the ones you are sponsoring.
 
I will not be tuning in to the Schweppervescence Plate race on 03 November 2026.

Please do the right thing and end your sponsorship of animal cruelty.

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