PETA Statement re Baffert Decision on Drug Violations

For Immediate Release:
April 20, 2021

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding the Arkansas Racing Commission’s decision to overturn the disqualifications of Gamine and Charlatan from races held on May 2, 2020, and to waive Bob Baffert’s suspension for drugging violations:

Bob Baffert once alleged that poppy seed bagels were responsible for the morphine in a horse’s system, but his gamut of obviously ridiculous excuses isn’t a joke to Gamine and Charlatan, who were victims of an illicit drug. No matter how the medication got into the horses, Baffert is responsible—and it’s the duty of a racing commission to enforce the law as written, not as manipulated by trainers and their clever lawyers. The Arkansas Racing Commission has done a disservice to horses and its own industry today.

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.