PETA Statement re Justify Drug Cover-Up

For Immediate Release:
September 11, 2019

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Arcadia, Calif. –

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo on the failure of the California Horse Racing Board to investigate the positive drug test of Justify before the 2018 Kentucky Derby:

This nasty cover-up has cheated the betting public and shown that the true winners of the Santa Anita and Kentucky derbies were Bolt d’Oro and Good Magic, although winning horses have nothing to cheer about; even worse, Bob Baffert apparently drugged and harmed Justify—a horse who was completely at his mercy and now is being treated like a sex slave, which will take a toll on him. Baffert should be suspended and held accountable, and Justify should be disqualified from the Triple Crown victory. Even at the highest levels, horseracing is crooked to the core.

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.