Request Comes in Wake of Colt's Career-Ending Injury

For Immediate Release:
October 14, 2008

Contact:
Kathy Guillermo 757-622-7382

Norfolk, Va. -- This morning, PETA sent an urgent letter to Michael Iavarone and Richard Schiavo, co-presidents and co-CEOs of International Equine Acquisitions Holdings Inc., imploring them to geld and retire Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown and not use him to sire more horses. The 3-year-old colt sustained a career-ending foot injury while being worked out at Aqueduct on Monday in preparation for the Breeders' Cup. In its letter, PETA points out that more and more horses are being bred from injury-prone forebears and that drugs, which are commonly used to cover up the injuries, could be one of the reasons why.

"More than 700 thoroughbreds break down and die every year at tracks across the country, but the horseracing industry is apparently more concerned with speed than the horses' well-being," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "Just because Big Brown's injury didn't cost him his life doesn't mean that his offspring won't crash to the ground and have to be put out of their misery, just as Eight Belles did at the Kentucky Derby in front of millions of horrified viewers."

For more information, please visit PETA.org.

PETA's letter to International Equine Acquisitions Holdings Inc. follows.

October 14, 2008

Michael Iavarone, Co-President/Co-CEO
Richard J. Schiavo, Co-President/Co-CEO
International Equine Acquisitions Holdings Inc.

Dear Messrs. Iavarone and Schiavo,

On behalf of PETA's two million members and supporters, I am writing to extend our condolences on Big Brown's injuries, which are reportedly serious enough to be career ending, and to ask you to take a very difficult step. For the good of future generations of thoroughbreds, we ask you not to stand Big Brown at stud. Rather than pass on the traits of a horse who has been plagued by injuries throughout his brief career, we ask that you geld and retire Big Brown.

Following the breakdown and death of Eight Belles, questions that had been confined to racing insiders became public: What has happened to thoroughbreds? Why are more than 700 horses suffering catastrophic injuries resulting in deaths on the race track every year? Some of the problems are attributed to breeding. Stallions with the fewest starts, whose careers are cut short by injury or fear of injury, are more likely to be bred than horses with longer racing careers. Logical people are questioning why unsound horses are being bred. One of the issues is that the use of legal drugs such as phenylbutazone has contributed to keeping unsound horses competing and thus covering up weaknesses. But as important, the desire for speed appears to have trumped common sense. Numerous media outlets reported that all 20 of the horses who competed in this year's Kentucky Derby had genes from Native Dancer--a winning horse who likely passed along a tendency toward unsoundness along with his speed. Native Dancer, too, was retired for leg injuries. Like Native Dancer, Big Brown's ascendency has been marred by ongoing leg and hoof problems, including a quarter crack in his hoof just before the Belmont Stakes.

Will you set aside your own desire for profit and do what's right for the horses? These animals have brought you fame and fortune. Perhaps now you could find it in your hearts to do them a favor.

Best regards,

Kathy Guillermo
Director of Research