Jockey Filmed on Bush Tracks With Shock Device Must Be Banned, PETA Urges Texas Officials
For Immediate Release:
September 21, 2022
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Today, PETA sent an urgent letter to the chair of the Texas Racing Commission and the racing secretary at Lone Star Park, urging them to act now to revoke José Beltran’s license and those of any other jockeys known to participate in unregulated “bush track” races. Beltran is entered to race at Lone Star Park this weekend in the $50,000 Lip Chip LLC Stakes, even though a new PETA exposé documented his participation in unsanctioned races rife with excessive whipping, drugging, and likely illegal gambling as well as his use of a vile device that electrically shocks horses. Possessing or wearing electric shock devices is prohibited in Texas.
“Horses are drugged, relentlessly whipped, and electroshocked in the seedy world of black market horse racing, and any jockey involved should lose his license,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on officials to launch an investigation as if horses’ and jockeys’ lives depended on it, because they do.”
PETA’s 10-month investigation into underground Quarter Horse racing in Georgia revealed widespread doping of horses with drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine, fatal injuries to both horses and jockeys, other abuse of horses, and the exchange of hundreds of thousands of dollars in likely illegal gambling. PETA has filed complaints with state and local authorities calling for criminal investigations into these and other possible acts that violate laws.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
