State Attorney Drops Charges in PETA-Totilas Abuse Case

Wed, 04/17/2013 - 14:54
German Dressage News

The Frankfurt state attorney has decided to drop all charges in the PETA case against the animal abuse of Totilas. On Monday 15 April the charnges were officially dropped.

"According to the state attorney there not a trace of abuse to be detected on the level of horse management, nor on the level of training," Klaus Martin-Rath told Dressursport Deutschland.

In October 2012 the animal rights organization PETA pressed charges against the owners of Totilas (Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff, Paul Schockemöhle) and the trainers of Totilas (Klaus-Martin Rath, Matthias Rath) for animal abuse. PETA claimed that Totilas has no social contact as he is kept isolated from other horses quarantined as a stallion, and is being abused because he's trained with the rollkur method.

In December 2012 animal welfare officer Dr Madeleine Martin with a delegation of six people carried out an on-site inspection at Schafhof in Kronberg to check if Totilas was being abused.

"The animal welfare officer quickly saw that neither the images, nor the videos of any evidence came from Schafhof," Rath explained. "The theme of horse management was quickly wiped off the table. And concerning the criticism on training it was more a religious war."

"Now that we have the law on our side, that this is certainly no case of animal abuse, it can be important for the entire equestrian sport," Rath concluded.

Rath added that all of this was "baked air" from the start but "overall it's a good feeling to have it now in legal writing."

Photo © Barbara Schnell

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