PETA Response to Defendants’ Attorney on Horse-Doping Lawsuit

For Immediate Release:
August 14, 2020

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Below, please find a statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo in response to the defendants’ attorney Howard Taylor’s misleading claims about the settlement of the horse-doping lawsuit Tretter v. Bresnahan:

Attorney Howard Taylor’s statement on Tretter v. Bresnahan was carefully worded and misleading. It was Jeff Tretter’s request—not the defendants’—that $7,500 be donated to the horse rescue charity after the $20,000 figure had already been agreed upon. Mr. Tretter wanted it to be on the record that the horse was the ultimate victim. The defendants delayed and frustrated the legal process by refusing to respond to discovery fully, forcing motions to compel, and attempting to obstruct nonparty discovery. Mr. Taylor’s characterization of the settlement agreement as a “business decision” is no doubt accurate from his perspective. The defendants reached that “business decision” when it became clear that they faced risk of a judgment many times the amount that Mr. Tretter should have won. Furthermore, Mr. Taylor does not know the amount of legal fees spent in prosecuting the claims against his client. The facts stand: Tests showed Tag Up and Go was doped with EPO, this amounted to cheating bettors, and the trainer and owner had to pay up. This should be the first of many such lawsuits.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. More information about this lawsuit is available here.