Taylor Swift has been condemned by animal rights activists for agreeing to perform at Australia's Melbourne Cup horse race.
The Bad Blood hitmaker will sing two tracks from her album Lover ahead of the annual event at Melbourne's Flemington Racecourse on 5 November.
"I can't wait to come to Melbourne, and I can't wait to come to the Melbourne Cup," she told Australia's Herald Sun newspaper about the gig. "I've heard so much about the race."
However, her concert has angered animal rights activists, including members of the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses, who are calling on Taylor to cancel her show due to the death of horses in the event.
"Taylor Swift has put money before compassion by agreeing to perform at the 2019 Melbourne Cup," a post on the group's Facebook page reads. "An event where at least 6 horses have been KILLED over the past 6 years."
Demanding the star takes a stand for horses in the same way she would for her beloved cats, they added: "Horses are being killed for gambling profits and entertainment. If Taylor Swift cares at all about other animals the way she appears to care about cats, she will cancel her show and make a strong statement that animal abuse is unacceptable."
Australian journalist and Taylor Swift fan Dejan Jotanovic has also penned an open letter to the star in The Guardian asking her to pull out of the concert.
The star is yet to respond to the activists' demands and her representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
