21/05/2026

Illegal horse racing, doping, abuse: five precautionary measures in Castelvetrano. The investigation started from our report.

The Carabinieri operation coordinated by the Marsala Public Prosecutor's Office closes the circle on an illegal racetrack that IHP had reported in February 2024. Here is how it unfolded.

The Judge for Preliminary Investigations in Marsala has issued five precautionary measures against five Italian citizens under investigation for criminal association aimed at organising clandestine horse races, animal abuse and doping. The scene of the events is a private agricultural estate in the hamlet of Triscina di Selinunte, in the Municipality of Castelvetrano, in the province of Trapani: a dirt straight over one kilometre long, carved out among olive trees, which for years served as a track for illegal competitions organised with complete impunity.

We knew that track. And in February 2024 we had filed a formal report with the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Marsala.

How we came to file the report

It all began with reading several press articles, in particular an investigation published by la Repubblica on 21 May 2024, which documented yet another Carabinieri intervention at a clandestine race in Triscina: nine people reported, horses subjected to sampling to check for the presence of doping substances, investigations opened into doping and illegal betting.

Reading that article — and the news from the preceding weeks — we understood that this was something more than an isolated incident. We launched our own open-source verification: Google Maps, Facebook, TikTok. What we found was staggering in its brazenness. The facility had been registered for years, complete with photos of races, starting orders, results and award ceremonies posted regularly. Competitions were advertised twice a week, visible to anyone.

On 9 February 2024, through the law firm Muceli & Murreli of Cagliari, IHP filed a report with the Marsala Public Prosecutor's Office, documenting everything: the links, the screenshots, the history of the facility, the identifiable individuals. In the complaint we also offered our availability to take in at the Montaione recovery centre any horses that might be seized in the course of the investigations.

What the investigation established

The investigative activity continued until July 2025, through the installation of cameras, forensic analysis of the suspects' mobile phones, and laboratory tests conducted by the Veterinary Service of the ASP and the CITES Unit of the Carabinieri Anti-Crime Nature Centre in Palermo.

The findings are serious. The suspects — five recipients of precautionary measures, seven others registered in the register of suspects — allegedly managed every aspect of the system: maintenance of the illegal racetrack, setting up of the stalls, collection of entries from jockeys and stables via messaging apps, scheduling of heats and distribution of race videos. Laboratory analyses confirmed the administration of prohibited doping substances. And on at least one documented occasion, a horse suffered a broken leg during a competition.

One of the recipients of the precautionary measures — a ban on residence in Sicily and four obligations to report to the judicial police — was already known to law enforcement for similar offences committed in the province of Caltanissetta, where he had set up another clandestine racetrack, later discovered and shut down. A case that says a great deal about the capacity of these individuals to reoffend, relocate and start again.

An important result

We say this because the logic that produced this result must be understood and replicated.

IHP read newspaper articles, carried out open-source checks, gathered the evidence and passed it on to the judicial authority. The Carabinieri and the Marsala Public Prosecutor's Office did their job with seriousness and determination. And the local press — which was the first to bring the existence of the racetrack to light — played an irreplaceable role.

When civil society reports, the judiciary investigates and law enforcement acts, results follow. The problem is that this mechanism is not automatic, not guaranteed and not sufficient on its own. The Triscina racetrack had been active for years. It was on Google Maps. It was on Facebook. Race videos circulated on TikTok. Nobody had stopped any of it.

The structural issue: an identification system that doesn't work

The Castelvetrano operation is an investigative success. But it does not close the problem: it photographs it. Clandestine races thrive because the traceability of equids in Italy is largely inefficient. Horses that leave the official racing circuit, labelled "track rejects", can disappear into the shadows without any monitoring system intercepting the transfer. It is the same dynamic that emerged in the case of Evenafterall — the thoroughbred that passed from Italian racetracks to Sicilian clandestine races, whose trail was lost among inconsistent registers and undeclared transports — and in the affair of the "ghost horses" of Perugia, currently at the centre of a trial in which IHP is a civil party.

Until the national equine registry is reformed to make the movements of animals genuinely verifiable, the illegal supply chain will always find the space to survive. The raid interrupts one race. Reform prevents the next one from being organised.

We are ready to take in the horses from Triscina

As we have done in the past — with Sacher and Muffin, with Evenafterall, with dozens of other animals — we are ready to care for any horses that the competent authorities may decide to entrust to our custody. Our Montaione recovery centre, recognised by the Ministry of Health, is equipped to receive them, rehabilitate them and guarantee them the future they deserve.

The race has stopped. For these horses, something different can begin.

Read also:
Catania: yet more incidents of animal cruelty involving horses
Catania, a Video and the Ghost Stables: How the Illegal Race Network Was Uncovered