PETA Statement re Gov. Hochul and the Travers Stakes

For Immediate Release:
August 28, 2021

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA and NYCLASS regarding Gov. Kathy Hochul’s awarding of the trophy for Travers Stakes winner Essential Quality:

It is disturbing that Kathy Hochul, New York’s first woman governor, coming in on the heels of a sexual harassment scandal, presented the trophy for the Travers Stakes winner, Essential Quality, whose owner, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, is widely believed to have kidnapped his own daughters and threatened his former wife with violence. Gov. Hochul now leads a state that hands over $230 million annually in subsidy payments to the racing industry, part of which goes to line the pockets of billionaire owners like Al Maktoum. This corporate welfare must end now, and the hundreds of millions of dollars that are making the rich even richer should go to New Yorkers.

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 about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.