‘Bush Track’ Electroshock Jockeys Scheduled to Race at Ruidoso

For Immediate Release:
August 18, 2022

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

After learning that jockeys will ride at Ruidoso Downs this weekend despite being exposed—in a Washington Post article that drew from a PETA investigation—wearing electric shock devices and looking on as horses were injected with drugs, PETA sent a letter today to the New Mexico Racing Commission (NMRC) and track General Manager Ethan Linder, urging them to revoke the licenses of any jockeys who participate in unregulated races.

In its damning 10-month investigation, PETA documented jockeys Bryan Candanosa (the 2022 leading money winner), Alex Carrillo, Eduardo Nicasio, and Rodrigo Vallejo wearing electric shock devices at “bush tracks,” where gambling and horse fatalities are commonplace. All are scheduled to race at Ruidoso Downs this weekend in the trials for the $3 million All American Futurity.

New Mexico prohibits the possession of electric shock devices, and if these jockeys were caught with them at Ruidoso Downs, they would be subject to severe penalties. The NMRC has the authority to suspend or revoke a license if the licensee “has engaged in conduct unbecoming or detrimental to the best interests of racing.”

“Jockeys who care so little about horses that they would tape electric shock devices to their wrists have no place in sanctioned racing,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “The NMRC and Ruidoso Downs should cut them loose now, before more horses get hurt.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.