24/10/2026

This weekend the Longines Global Champions Tour, the international show jumping circuit founded by Jan Tops, is holding a leg in Egypt for the first time, at the foot of the Giza pyramids. Total prize money is €1.75 million, one million of which goes to the Grand Prix. The agreement with the Egyptian government, announced in Cairo in January in the presence of Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, covers five editions.

On the same plateau, horses, donkeys and dromedaries work every day carrying tourists around.

Two worlds on the same plateau

For the competition horses, Egypt has put in place a tailor-made health protection system. According to the self-declaration submitted by the Egyptian authorities to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), up to 103 horses are taking part in the event, all of them from the European Union for this first edition. They arrive by air, are transferred from Cairo airport in sealed vehicles under police escort, and stay in a zone of about nine hectares declared free of equine diseases, with controlled access, temperature checks twice a day and continuous veterinary supervision.

The conditions of the equids used for tourism on the same plateau have been denounced for years by organisations such as Egypt Equine Aid, Pferdehilfe Kairo and Brooke. PETA Asia, which has been investigating at Giza since 2019, released footage in 2025 of malnourished, injured and sick horses and camels, and of animal carcasses dumped near the pyramids. Amr Gazarin, chairman of Orascom Pyramids Entertainment, the company managing the redevelopment of the site, has himself described the animals’ situation as “terrible”, while adding that the aim is to regulate those who handle them, not to end the activity.

Reforms announced, results yet to be shown

There has been no shortage of announcements. As early as 2020, according to PETA, Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism announced its intention to ban horse and camel rides around the pyramids. In 2024 the Ministries of Tourism and Agriculture launched a programme to protect animals at archaeological sites, and this year, according to Cavallo 2000, the Giza Governorate changed its rules on animal hire, revoking the licences of anyone who injures or mistreats them. In June several international media outlets reported that rides would gradually be replaced by electric buses, but without referring to any official measure: so far, the ban does not appear to be in force.

To coincide with the competition, the organisers presented a project to strengthen veterinary care and improve working conditions for the plateau’s horses, led by the Egyptian Equestrian Federation together with the public veterinary services, the Giza Governorate, Orascom Pyramids and Brooke. As Cavallo 2000 points out, no budget, number of animals involved or measurable targets were given. PETA, which is calling for the rides to be banned, notes that this is the fourth programme of its kind in less than four years.

The false distinction between lucky and unlucky horses

It would be a mistake to divide horses into “lucky” ones, which compete in equestrian sports and live between stables and paddocks, and unlucky ones, exploited for tourism.

For IHP, there is no such thing as a lucky horse when a horse is used for human interests and entertainment. Show jumping horses spend most of their lives in stalls, are broken and trained with coercive tools, are transported from one continent to another to compete and, once they are no longer competitive, have no structured provision for their care. Their material conditions may be better than those of a ride horse at Giza, and at Giza the difference in health treatment between the two groups proves it. But the logic is the same: the animal is worth something only as long as it pays its way. This is why IHP opposes the use of horses in equestrian sports and competitions, as well as in horse rides and treks, in Egypt as in Italy.

A horse’s welfare means being able to move freely around the clock, to live in a group and to graze. None of these conditions is compatible with a competitive career, nor with the daily work of carrying tourists.

The market has already moved

The Giza case ties in with what IHP reported in September about the major online travel operators. Tripadvisor has stopped selling tickets for horse races, applying a policy that excludes experiences in which animals are exposed to the risk of injury or death for sport or entertainment. Booking.com does not work with businesses that include races between animals of any kind. Airbnb excludes horse racing and polo and bans horse-drawn carriages in urban settings.

These are important decisions, because they show that a growing share of travellers no longer want to pay for experiences built on animal exploitation. But they remain partial: Tripadvisor and Booking.com still allow horse rides and treks, provided they meet the platforms’ standards. These are the very experiences that show their worst face at Giza. The criterion the platforms apply to racing, namely not profiting from activities that expose animals to risk for people’s entertainment, applies equally to tourist rides and to equestrian competitions.

IHP calls on online travel platforms to keep moving in this direction and to remove horse rides and treks with equids from their offering as well. And it asks travellers not to buy them: at Giza, as in Italy’s tourist destinations.

Read also
Holidays without exploitation: online travel chooses to protect animals (September 2026) –