Assiniboia Downs urged to install cameras after jockey caught beating horse

An animal rights organization is demanding Assiniboia Downs install closed-circuit cameras in stables after a whistleblower leaked footage of a horse being beaten in 2023.

The video, which is just under three minutes, shows a jockey grabbing a mare by the throat, repeatedly striking her face and whipping the animal with her headgear.

An employee captured the footage in July 2023 and it was leaked to Animal Justice in March, said Kaitlyn Mitchell, the organization’s director of legal advocacy.

“The video is absolutely gut-wrenching. It is a drawn-out, physical assault on this horse,” Mitchell said. “You can see this individual hitting the horse repeatedly. You can see that the horse cannot escape.”

Animal Justice released the footage publicly on Thursday after verifying its authenticity and reviewing court records related to the incident, Mitchell said.

Mitchell called for Assiniboia Downs to install 24-hour video surveillance in its horse barns. She said racetracks across North America and abroad have them.

“The principle is really just making sure that regulators can see what is happening off the track, behind the scenes of the races,” Mitchell said.

“It’s a really reasonable ask. I think that it would help prevent this type of conduct in the future and, again, help the Assiniboia Downs to regain some of the public trust that might be eroded from folks seeing that this happened at that facility.”

Darren Dunn, the CEO of Assiniboia Downs, said the horse track was not aware of the incident before Thursday and hadn’t seen the footage released by Animal Justice.

He said the jockey involved in the incident has not raced there for several years.

“It was never brought to our attention… had we been advised, I can again assure you that we would have taken very swift and strong action. The care, safety and health of our equine athletes is of paramount importance to our operations,” he wrote in an email statement.

“We do not have 24-hour surveillance cameras in the barns and do not currently have plans to add them. However, many horse trainers, on their own, do have them in their barns.”

According to the Equibase website, the jockey’s professional record at Assiniboia Downs, and all other tracks, stopped after the 2023 season.

Court records reviewed by the Free Press confirm the man was charged with three counts of willfully causing or permitting unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal.

One of those counts stemmed from the July 7, 2023, incident involving the horse. He was also charged in separate incidents in August and September of that year, in which he was accused of punching and striking a dog with a fly swatter, the court documents show.

One of those incidents was also captured on video and shared with the Free Press. It shows the accused lifting a small dog off the ground and pinning it against a leather ottoman before repeatedly beating it with a shoe as it yelps in pain.

“To me, this shows a pattern of conduct which is highly concerning for someone who works with animals and who is alone with animals,” Mitchell said.

“That really leaves questions for me about how many other instances might have taken place with this individual that we aren’t aware of.”

The court stayed all three charges in March 2025. In exchange, the accused was ordered to comply with a 12-month peace bond that restricted him from owning or keeping animals as pets during that period. He was prohibited from being in the presence of pets or other animals, except if required for work purposes.

The man told the court he was from Barbados and had come to Canada to work as a jockey. He confirmed he was employed at Assiniboia Downs.

Prosecutor Mark Pulak warned the man that, if there were further allegations of animal abuse, the Crown would pursue criminal convictions against him, court records show.

Mitchell said it is “shocking” the courts permitted the man to continue working with animals.

“This is an individual who now is free to continue owning animals, interacting with them, working with them. So, it does just seem like the animal’s interests and preventing future abuse of animals was really not considered in this case.”

She said she does not know why the whistleblower came forward in March to leak the footage to Animal Justice, but speculated it could be because the peace bond was expiring.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca