Golden Gate sues protest group, seeking ban from racetrack

Golden Gate Fields in Albany, Calif., has filed a lawsuit against a group whose members on March 6 scaled fencing at the track and delayed racing for six hours as a protest action, according to Bay Area news organizations.

The lawsuit, filed on March 9 in Alameda Superior Court, seeks to ban the protest group, Direct Action Everywhere, and its members from the track’s property, citing the actions on March 6. On that day, four members of the group climbed the outer fence of the track, set off smoke flares, and linked themselves with plastic piping while laying down on the track’s backstretch. Golden Gate canceled its first race and delayed six other races for six hours due to the actions.

The four protestors who climbed the fence were charged with criminal trespassing, according to the suit. But the lawsuit said that a ban on the group is necessary because the protestors' actions “risked the health of the horses” and that the group is “planning, and will continue, to engage in similar unlawful actions in the future until defendants achieve their stated goal of shutting down the horse-racing business.”

The protest also resulted in the temporary shutdown of a COVID-19 vaccination clinic on the property.

Direct Action Everywhere describes itself as a “global network of activists working to achieve animal liberation in one generation.” The group has circulated petitions seeking to ban racing in California, a state where the animal-rights movement is especially prominent.