CLICK HERE if you’re viewing on a mobile device. VIDEO: Protesters at Golden Gate Fields chain themselves to track
BERKELEY — Four people chained themselves together and lay down on the racetrack at Golden Gate Fields on Thursday, demanding that the track be shut down over recent horse deaths and forcing the day’s races to be canceled.
The protest also forced a coronavirus vaccination site near the track to shut down for about two hours.
Seventeen people from a Berkeley-based group called “Direct Action Everywhere (DxE)” held blue-and-gold placards as they gathered near the entrance to the racetrack at Interstate 80 and Gilman Street. Four others found their way onto the track and lay down in what a press release from the activists described as “heavily-weighted PVC pipes”.
The protest started around noon. The banner and placards outside the track read, “Shut Down Golden Gate Fields,” and the protesters chanted, “It’s not entertainment,” and “There’s no excuse for animal abuse.”
The four who went onto the track were identified by 33-year-old Almira Tanner, the group’s lead organizer, as Jamie Crom, Omar Aicardi, Rocky Chau and Rachel Ziegler. As of 3:30 p.m., the four chained protesters were still on the track along with police, who arrived shortly after the protest began.
“These beautiful animals live lives of exploitation and abuse for the sake of profit,” Chau said in a statement released by the group. “Then they’re killed for the same reason. The public is increasingly aware of the reality of this barbaric industry and is demanding that we leave it in the past.”
The protest caused Golden Gate Fields to cancel all the day’s races. According to the track’s website, seven races were scheduled.
It also wreaked havoc upon the planned mass coronavirus vaccination that was scheduled to take place outside the racetrack in the parking lot. Authorities closed the vaccination site for several hours, but it re-opened around 2:15 p.m.
“Golden Gate Fields is a firm believer in the right to protest,” the racetrack said in a statement just before 2 p.m. “However, the current actions of the protesters have forced the closure of the onsite COVID vaccination clinic, and hundreds of people have already had their vaccinations cancelled. We respectfully suggest to the activists that there is a better way to have this conversation and air their concerns. We welcome the opportunity to have this discussion in the appropriate format.”
Said Keith May, the Berkeley Fire Department’s Assistant Chief of Special Operations: “It’s because of those four individual protesters that we had to close it. You don’t know the intent of the protesters until they’re out there.”
Direct Action Everywhere said via Twitter that it supported the reopening of the vaccination site and a press coordinator for the group wrote that the shutdown of the site was “a desperate attempt to deflect blame and attention from the horror show that GGF is for horses and humans.”
A Berkeley police cruiser and a paramedic truck from the Berkeley Fire Department were stationed a block away from the protests, and Golden Gate Fields placed three security officers at the entrance where the 17 protesters stood and chanted.
The outside group was a small one, because the group did not want to disrupt traffic at Gilman Street and the entrance and exits of I-80, Samantha Eachus of Santa Rosa, one of the protesters and a professed horse owner, said.
“We expect them to continue racing and training. We hope they will do the right thing,” Eachus said in reference to shutting down the track. “They could use the land better to serve the public.”
Tanner said the four people on the track were prepared to be arrested, but as of 4 p.m., authorities had not announced any arrests with the protesters still on the track.
Tina Etcheverry, a Berkeley Hills resident and biochemist who said she had a COVID-19 vaccination appointment delayed by the protest, called the entire fracas chaotic.
“I’m pissed at the racetrack, I’m pissed at the city of Albany and I’m pissed at these guys,” Etcheverry said of the protesters, though she said she agreed with their message against animal cruelty.
During the protests, a track worker pulled over his car and threw two eggs at the larger group of protesters gathered outside the facility. He then charged the group, yelling about workers’ livelihoods. Track security grabbed him and escorted him back to his car.
Other people screamed obscenities at the protesters.
At least five horses have died at the racetrack this year, according to a state database of racehorse fatalities.
In 2020, more than 20 horses died on the track, causing Berkeley city council and Mayor Jesse Arreguín to request a special investigation on behalf of Berkeley residents.
The California Horse Racing Board’s website listed four of the deaths as training related, with the fifth labeled as “other”. That meant the horse’s death did not occur during racing or training.
Cathy Crispin, a Washington-based horse trainer living in El Sobrante, stopped by the race track and spoke out against the protest. She acknowledged that accidents and deaths happen, but suggested that people involved in the horse racing industry love the animals more than the activists.
“We did have some horses get hurt and had to be euthanized. But you know, it happens, I mean, horses in the fields get hurt,” Crispin said. “They think it’s cruel? These horses get treated better than people. They are cared for from 4 o’clock in the morning ’til 6 o’clock at night. They get fed before the people get fed. If they had any clue what they were talking about [the activists] wouldn’t be doing this.”