Protection of Animals (Amendment) Act, 1965

Prohibition of public contests with animals.

15.—(1) No person shall promote or cause or knowingly permit to take place any public performance which includes any episode consisting of or involving:—

(a) throwing or casting with ropes or other appliances any unbroken horse or untrained bull, or

(b) wrestling, fighting or struggling with any untrained bull, or

(c) riding or attempting to ride any horse or bull which by the use of any appliance or treatment involving cruelty is or has been stimulated with the intention of making it buck during the performance;

and no person shall in any public performance take part in any such episode as aforesaid.

(2) In any proceedings under this section an animal that has been represented to spectators to be unbroken or untrained shall be presumed to have been unbroken or untrained at the time of such representation unless the contrary is proved.

(3) In any proceedings under this section in respect of the use of any such appliance or treatment as is mentioned in paragraph (c) of subsection (1) it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove that he did not know and could not reasonably be expected to know that the appliance or treatment was to be or was used.

(4) Any person who contravenes any of the provisions of this section shall be guilty of an offence of cruelty within the meaning of the Principal Act and shall be liable to the penalties specified in section 1 of that Act.

(5) In this section the expression “public performance” does not include a performance presented to the public by means of a cinematograph or television.