PETA Statement: Baffert-Trained Horse Dead at Pimlico

For Immediate Release:
May 20, 2023

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Baltimore –

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding the fatal injury of Thoroughbred Havnameltdown, trained by Bob Baffert, at Pimlico Race Course today on Preakness Stakes day:

Pimlico should have followed Churchill Downs’ example and barred Bob Baffert from the track. Baffert has been implicated in drugging scandals and the deaths of seven horses who collapsed in California, and at least 75 horses in his care have died. The tragic death of Havnameltdown is the latest in a long line of fatalities. The racing industry must kick out the bad guys or it will have blood on its hands as well as blood on its tracks.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.