ANTI-cruelty campaigners hope to give punters a run for their money when they demonstrate against horse racing outside a betting shop today.

Protestors from the Newcastle Animal Rights Coalition will be dressed as a pantomime horse to try to persuade punters entering the Ladbrokes betting shop to think twice about how race horses are allegedly treated.

Campaigners will be handing out leaflets encouraging people not to bet on horse racing and, instead, take an anti-cruelty stance.

The protest, which coincides with Animal Aid's Horse Racing Awareness Week and Saturday's Grand National, is at the Ladbrokes branch in Percy Street, opposite the Haymarket bus station, in Newcastle.