Photos: Racehorse Found Dumped at Landfill

PETA Seeks Investigation As Mountaineer Track Fails to Identify Cause of Death of Thoroughbred Racehorse

For Immediate Release:
October 16, 2019

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

This morning, PETA called on the Hancock County sheriff to investigate the suspicious death of a horse whose body was dumped—with racing bandages still on her legs—at a local landfill. A Mountaineer racetrack official has admitted to dumping the horse’s body but has refused to disclose the Thoroughbred’s name, cause of death, and whether or not veterinary attention was given to the horse.

A whistleblower who alerted PETA and provided photographs was told by Mountaineer that the horse acted erratically and bashed her head into the stall wall, sustaining a fatal injury. But PETA believes the horse, who was dumped on or around September 27, may be an 8-year-old mare called Bridget Moloney, who was injured in a race on September 25 and driven off the track. If the horse is Bridget Moloney, whose markings and leg wraps match those of the horse in the photo, PETA questions what care the mare received after she was hurt during her final race.

“The track’s refusal to divulge who this horse is, what happened to her, and whether she received veterinary care for her injures smacks of a cover-up,” says PETA Senior Vice President of Equine Matters Kathy Guillermo. “The racing industry is under pressure for large numbers of horse deaths, drug use, and discarding horses overseas, where they’re slaughtered for meat, so a thorough investigation into what happened to this mare is needed.”

PETA is urging the sheriff to investigate for possible violations of W. Va. Code § 61-8-19, which penalizes the cruel mistreatment of an animal, withholding medical care from an animal, and riding a physically unfit animal.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.