PETA Statement re: Fasig-Tipton Auction Company Ends Deadly Timed Sprints for Young Horses

For Immediate Release:
July 1, 2025

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Timonium, Md. –

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding Fasig-Tipton’s announcement today that it is banning the practice of whipping and forcing young horses to sprint short distances faster than they would ever race at its 2026 two-year-old Thoroughbred auction:

Champagne corks are popping at PETA over Fasig-Tipton’s ban on reckless, sometimes fatal, timed sprints and whipping at its 2026 auction for two-year-old Thoroughbreds. In May, PETA released video of a young horse whose bones shattered during a sprint at Fasig-Tipton’s auction on May 15 in Maryland and contacted Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning, urging him to stop risking horses’ lives and allow untimed gallops only. We are relieved he has finally listened. PETA first exposed the danger of forcing physically immature horses to run at breakneck speed, just to drive up sales prices, in 2011 and has been advocating for an end to them since, repeatedly releasing video of the horses as their legs broke and they were euthanized on the track. We look forward to Ocala Breeders’ Sales following Fasig-Tipton’s progressive example.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.