PETA Statement: Lack of Veterinarians at Mountaineer Racetrack

For Immediate Release:
October 10, 2022

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding today’s revelation that there are often no veterinarians present at Mountaineer Racetrack in West Virginia while horses are being trained:

PETA exposed Mountaineer Racetrack for dumping dead horses at a local landfill in 2019, and it appears that the track is still treating horses like trash. The West Virginia Racing Commission should immediately suspend all racing there until additional veterinarians are hired. There should be no training without a veterinarian present, or horses who suffer catastrophic breakdowns could suffer for hours before being euthanized. If Mountaineer won’t protect horses, the state must.

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.