They are not suitable places to host mass musical events, because, in addition to being facilities dedicated to racing, they are also spaces where horses live which could suffer physical and psychological damage due to the strong noises and vibrations produced by concerts.
Thus the IHP (Italian Horse Protection) association, the first organization in Italy dedicated to the protection of equids, expresses its opposition to the concerts that Jovanotti has planned for the summer of 2026 at the La Favorita racecourse in Palermo and the Agnano racecourse in Naples, also pointing the finger at those who manage those racecourses.
We are thrilled to learn that a concert is being organized that will welcome thousands of people inside a racecourse, a few meters from the boxes where dozens of horses are housed, animals that could panic and injure themselves due to the large and prolonged noise to which they are not accustomed and which, in the best case scenario, will suffer severe stress – says the president of IHP, Sonny Richichi. We can also imagine that the organizers have trusted the words of those who manage the racecourse who, as an opportunist who ignores the well-being of the horses to make some money, will have reassured everyone by telling the story that the horses are used to the noise and that they don’t get scared. But this does not justify a decision that should have been thought out better, not based solely on who exploits the horses.
But this is not the case and IHP underlines that horses are extremely sensitive animals and that, by their nature, they are prey and therefore equipped with very fine hearing. Exposed to loud and prolonged noises, such as those at concerts, they can panic, with the risk of injury.
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Locked in boxes and bombarded by noise, these animals will experience a condition of stress that we cannot tolerate. The already unnatural life they lead on the racecourse is aggravated by the psychological violence caused by events of this type, Richichi continues.
IHP therefore launches an appeal to Lorenzo Cherubini: choose alternative locations for his concerts, where fun does not involve sacrificing the well-being of any animal. The association points out that such a gesture would be consistent with the environmental sensitivity that the artist has demonstrated several times in the past.
Yet, the concerts have already been organized at the Agnano Hippodrome
Yet, at least at the Agnano Hippodrome, there were concerts last summer too, but there seems to have been a general silence on how much these concerts can affect the safety and well-being of the animals present. Why, then, was no action taken in time to stop events that could harm equids?
