PETA Statement: Justify Must Be Stripped of Triple Crown, Kentucky Derby Titles

For Immediate Release:
December 1, 2023

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding a California judge’s order to disqualify Justify from his win in the 2018 Santa Anita Derby:

Justice was slow, but the court has at last come down on the side of the horses’ and ordered Justify’s win in the 2018 Santa Anita Derby to be set aside. It can’t end here. Justify tested positive for a banned substance and must be stripped of his Kentucky Derby and Triple Crown titles. He would not have qualified for the Derby had California officials acted properly and thus would never have won the Triple Crown. Bob Baffert must not sweep doping under the rug with flimsy excuses, and the industry must take responsibility for protecting all Thoroughbreds at all times.

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, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.