Rotten Mango - “Horse Wife” Hires Hitman To Kill Rich Husband After Burning $20M On Failed Horse Show Business

Episode Date: January 25, 2026

The owners of the horse show, Valitar, are a wealthy, conventionally attractive couple called the Remley’s. Mark Remley is a little bit older. Perhaps nerdy, but the type of guy to get into peak shape later in life. Tatyana Remley is his wife with bottle blonde hair and a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model body. She’s also the main star of the Valitar horse show. The Remley’s invested over $20 million dollars into the show, just to lose every single penny of it after multiple scandals back to back. Allegedly, horses were abandoned with nothing to eat and massive creative differences led to performers quitting. Former staff members would come out to allege that Tatyana Remley doesn’t even know how to ride a horse that well… Later, the couple is featured on TV as a well known swinger’s couple, a pillar in the local sex-swinging community. That’s just a side quest though; the most scandalous thing that happened at Valitar was the decapitated horse head on the Remley’s marital bed. Thankfully, it’s not an actual butchered horse head. It’s just a hunk from one of their very expensive statues in their $5.5 million dollar home near San Diego, California. And it’s clearly not been placed there as a mistake. This is a targeted threat. And by the end of the investigation, one of the Remleys, the founders of the failed multi-million dollar Valitar horse show, will be dead.   Full show notes available at RottenMangoPodcast.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Bada being, baddaboo. During the Olympics, if you ever watch the equestrian games, you're looking at a lot of science inside the horse. The horses are the science. They are fine-tuned like cars. I mean, they're basically Formula One cars, but alive and breathing and that's, you know, horsepower. They are genetically tested.

They're bred to make sure that they are well-bred, that they're well-fit for the games that they're entering. One lab testing that you can get done. on a horse is for the speed gene. It's a very specific gene. If a horse has this specific gene, they are going to be more predisposed to develop what they call the fast twitch muscles.

They're perfect for the sprint. But they're not going to be endurance horses. So the genes of a horse can even tell you if a horse is going to be predisposed to liking dirt or turf, which is very important. The lab says, some clients will even have their horses tested as soon as they're born. Then they can just map out a plane.

for all of their individual horses, which trainer they're going to go see, which type of sport they're going to specialize in, and there's a lot of specialties. There's a lot of different ways you can look at a horse. I mean, obviously, I'm not just talking from like an ophthalmology standpoint. Let's start with English writing. You have dressage, often called horse ballet. It's how a writer is able to guide their horse through a complex movement performance. It's an Olympic sport. It's all about the grace, the control of the horse. If you are me and you are uncultured and you watch this on TV during the Olympics, it looks like the horse.

We did, didn't we? Yes, it's doing like a little dalliance, like a little dance, like a little tippy toe dance. That's what it looks like. The horse is galloping in place. It looks like it's just skipping in place, which side note, when they skip in place, the horse appears motionless at certain points, but that is exerting an enormous amount of energy on the horse. Because trotting in place defies the laws of motion for a horse. It actually is like physically very difficult.

They're probably sweating from trotting in place. And I'm just like, look at him. Look at the tippy toes. That's what it is. These horses have to train for like a minimum of eight to 12 years to do the tippy toe dance. Wow. That's dressage. Then you head into show jumping.

That's where the horses and the riders, they have to clear a course of obstacles. They look like fences without knocking them down. It's about speed. It's about clearing the rounds, although most of them look incredibly graceful, I will say. But with any equestrian event, There has to be a lot of trust and relationship established between the horse and the writer. Show jumping, with that being said, so elegant, so graceful, so beautiful, I could never do that. If you've never seen it, I'm just going to give you a visual in your head for the audio listeners.

You know, when you have the dog competitions and you have the dog, like, jumping through the obstacle courses, it's like that, but you're on the Australian Shepherd's back. But also, your outfit is great. It looks good. It looks artistic. I'm uncultured. It's the only way I can describe it. The third of the English disciplines is called eventing, where you do dressage, show jumping, cross-country. Cross-country is essentially American Ninja Warrior, but on a horse. You go through like a full outdoor obstacle course. You've got logs in ditches of water. You've got water features that complicate the horse.

And horses get spooked very easily. So you have to make sure that they don't get spooked. And you get penalized for refusals. That's when the horse is like, yeah, I'm not going to do that. You get penalized for that. You get penalized for falling, obviously. Or interestingly, you get penalized for going too fast or too slow. I didn't know that was a thing.

But you can't, you have to be in the sweet spot of a lot of time. You actually get penalized if you're faster than that a lot of time. Every second faster than that little sweet spot time, you have a penalty. Why is that? It's, you want to, I think that they're also trying to prevent reckless, dangerous acts on a horse. Huh. By going too fast. And it's about like the agility and the consistent.

speed instead of just like bursts of sprinting through. So they're looking for a lot of different things. So like, okay, what, you know, these, these sports, how much of that is the horse doing the sport versus the person on top of the horse? Both. It is both? Yeah, it's both. So there are really, really good riders, but the horses, that's why horse juice for reproduction

is one of the most expensive liquids in the world. if you have a really well-bred stallion, if you have a really well-bred show horse, their specimen to procreate other horses can be very expensive to purchase. So it's all about the horse lineage and also the writer. It's a mixture of both. I mean, I don't know. It's hard to say, but I think the Western ones are a little bit more fun. So the Western writing disciplines and competitions, you've got raining.

This is about the athletic prowess of the horse. So it's dressage, but kind of more rodeo level. I mean, it's all about how a horse can do a series of patterns, sliding stops, spins, flying lead changes. One Reddeter says it primarily focused on moving your horse with very little hand movements. The focus is on using your seat and your legs almost exclusively to control this horse. And the energy is different. It appears that it's taking place inside like a dirt pit in a stadium. And I love horses.

I think they're so majestic. I have an irrational fear of sustaining a brain injury on a horse, but other than that, I feel like they're smarter than me. However, when you watch this for the first time, all I can compare it to is like when your dog has the zoomies, and they're zooming and they're like skidding to a stop and you're on top of the horse, that's what a lot of the Western competitions look like. And I'm sure it takes a lot of skill. And then you have, interestingly, I mean, you also have like the equestrian events that are more focused on the writer about how the writer is able to control their horse. then you have like the show horse events where it's really just about the horse itself and

their breeding and their stance and all of that as well as horse show performances. Cavalya. It's like Cirque de Saleh meets horses. Acrobat's on a horse. I mean, these are just a few shows in sports that horses are the center of. And of course, sports like polo. I can't forget polo before everyone gets mad at me. This is a field that's three football fields long.

Everyone is on a horse. These horses are like a thousand pounds, even though they're called polo ponies. They're not ponies. They're massive horses. And the writers have to use these little mallets to hit and aim at this tiny white ball. Each polo pony is going like 30 miles per hour. All their tails have to be wrapped so that nobody's equipment or their tails don't get tangled with each other causing injuries. It's a very dangerous sport.

Most elite polo players have at least 10 polo ponies for one match. They swap through the ponies in one match because a few minutes of polo ponying, the pony is tired. They've got 10, and they have to fly these horses in from all over the parts of the world when they have a polo match. But here's an interesting detail. Sometimes the polo ponies are all the same. Not the same breed, not the same look, but genetic carbon copies, genetic clones of each other. What do you mean? They started cloning ponies.

You're kidding me. Yeah. Lab made. Lab made from some of the best polo ponies. They cloned them. That's crazy. There's one top player in the world. Really?

He's got, he's from Argentina, I believe, and he has six of the same exact pony, genetically speaking. They are clones. He has six clones. I don't know we're doing that already. There's a lot of drama there. I mean, some people believe eventually polo is going to be a game of who can clone horses the best, rather than who can play polo the best.

Other people think it's becoming even more expensive to learn the sport of polo. There's a lot of drama, even who has the rights over. For each clone, there's so much drama. There's a lot of scandals. It's a very complicated story where players are now saving genetic samples of their horses' skin in cryogenic storage chambers. The horse world is crazy. It seems like each division of equestrian sports, the horse world, they've got their own fair share of scandals. And for Vallatar, this is a horse show in California, they have a lot of scandals.

The owners of the horse show Valatar are this wealthy couple. They're pretty conventionally attractive as well. It's kind of important later, but they're the Remleys. The Remleys look like your standard rich couple from San Diego. Mark Remley, the husband, he's a bit older. He looks very fit, but in a nerdy way. I don't know how to describe it. He looks fit in the way that Jeff Bezos looks fit.

Like you remember Jeff Bezos as a bald nerd. And then now he's like jacked and bald, but you can just tell. It just doesn't sit normally with him. Like he just doesn't move like he's always been fit his whole life. Like genetically modified. Exactly. Like it just doesn't feel like, it just feels like a little weird. I don't know if it's the best look on him.

Mark Remley looks fit the way Jeff Bezos looks fit. And then you have the wife, Tatiana Remley. And Tatiana, she's blonde. She's got a sports illustrated model cover body. And she's also the star of the Vallatar horse show. She's an equestrian. She's a writer. They've invested over $20 million into the show.

And they lose every single penny of it. I mean, the list of Valatar's, scandals goes on, but it includes horses get abandoned with nothing to eat. Performers quit over massive creative differences over Tatiana. Later, the owners are known to be swingers at a sex club that a lot of celebrities attend. And this is not necessarily a scandal, but that was more of an interesting side quest. And former staffers will come out to say more or less, Tatiana, doesn't even know how to write a horse. So their horse show, what exactly do they do? Like, which branch of the It's like Cavalya, they are acrobats on horses.

Cirque de Salae meets horses. So it's like performance. Yes. Not like a competition. No. I see, I see. And Tatiana doesn't even know how to ride a horse swell. And you're supposed to be doing a handstand on a horse that's galloping around the atrium.

But the biggest scandal to come out of Alitar has to be the decapitated horse head on the Remley's marital bed. It's not real, though. Thank God. Okay. I mean, it happened, but it's not a real horsehead. It's a decapitated horsehead from one of their very expensive horse statues that they have in their front lawn of their five and a half million dollar house in Del Mar, California. This is near San Diego.

And it's clearly not a mistake. No one, it's not like one of their housekeepers accidentally knocked over the statue while sweeping. And in a moment of panic, they placed the decapitated horse statue head on the couple's bed, changed their government name, ran off to a new state to start a new business. That is not the case here. This is a targeted message. This is a threat. And by the end of it, one of the Remli's, one of the founders of the Valatar Horse Show, will be dead. We would like to thank today's sponsors who made it possible for Rotten Mango to support the National Immigration Law Coalition.

NILC is one of the leading advocacy organizations in the U.S. dedicated to advancing and defending the rights and opportunities of immigrants and their loved ones. This episode's partnerships have also made it possible to support Rotten Mango's growing team. And we'd also like to thank you guys for your continued support. As always, full show notes are available about rotten minglepodcast.com. A few disclaimers, there are mentions of potential CA, religious trauma, the very brief, and additionally, mental health and self-exit conversations. So please take care of yourself and this becomes too much. Take a break and we will see you in the next one.

With that being said, let's get started. When it comes to the ultimate fantasy, the saying is, you know, no two are the same, right? That doesn't apply. Everyone has similar fantasies and interests, apparently. You like watching your partner have intimate relations with somebody else and front of you? Yeah, so did he. Okay. Get in line for the chair. There's lots of people. Now, the usage of ropes, there's a whole community built on the art of tying rope on somebody. However, even if you have this super niche specialized interest where you think there's nobody else

that has the same fantasy as I do, they are ready, such as watching Lady Antoinette do the bounce on a champagne bottle, a historical figure from France. Do the bounce on a champagne bottle. If you have thought about that extensively at night and it keeps you up, you are not entirely alone. And there is someone here to make it happen for you. The Sanctum Club. This is the place where nothing legal is off the table. There are lots of places where you can go and watch your partner have intimate relations with someone else right in front of your face. But none of them are like the Sanctum Club. That's what all the Sanctum members will tell you. Sanctum Club is an elite sex club in Beverly Hills that has been called half pagan sex cult, half

entertainment mogul after party sex club. Wait, say that one more time? Half what? Yeah, some people think it's like a pagan sex cult. It's like not super religious. Oh, okay. Or it's a half entertainment mogul after party sex club. So where all the Hollywood directors go after the Oscars and they watch everybody do the

bounce. Okay, that's like, which one is it? We don't know. Is it still operating? It is still operating with new owners. Okay. Yeah. Actually, one of the members bought out the club and they operate it.

I did go on, like I fell down a rabbit hole on Reddit. Some people say it's past its prime time. So there's like lots of debates of which club, and I think they do a lot of more parties and events in New York. And then I went down the whole rabbit hole and they said, you know, the best parties in New York are the ones that you need to invite to that nobody really knows the club name. Anyway.

Okay, it's up to you to decide, which is a more fitting description for a sanctum. You usually don't even know who's going to be in attendance beforehand. You have to give up your phone at the door. You have to sign an ironclad NDA before going in. The only reason that we even know about this club is, well, for how secretive they are, they've got a whole season of a reality show online readily available to watch, and we're going to get more into that later because Tatiana and Mark Remley are on the show. Okay.

That plus a few writers and a few columns. writers, journalists, we're allowed inside and we're able to describe the party without mentioning any specific guest. Each party is different. Each crowd of attendees is different. But for each party, you have a group of devotees. These are the performers that work for sanctum. That's what they're called. They are the erotic theater performers. They're the show. Depending on the theme, their performance will differ. Sometimes it consists of them dressing up as bunnies and standing as still as possible as human furniture that you can grow. Other times after a private dinner party,

these devotees will climb on top of the dinner table and carry on with consumption of things that are not food. What? They're all eating each other, okay? They're all doing nasty to each other on the dinner table after the dinner party. I do think the health department might take issue with that, but it's not a restaurant establishment.

It's a private party, so I guess perhaps it gets a pass. Sometimes the performance will include one of the devotees dressed up as Lady Antoinette, a historical figure, sitting on top of a coffee table doing ungodly, unspeakable things to a champagne bottle that hasn't been popped yet. And the only thing I can think of is that seems really dangerous. Because at least you should empty it, right? Yeah, that's crazy. But the most important part about Sanktum Club. That's actually really alarming.

Yeah, I know. And it was on the reality show. Oh. Oh, yeah. What is on the reality show? performances on the reality show? Lots of stuff was on the reality show. Okay. Well, yeah, lots of stuff. So, but the most important part about Sankton Club is that your biggest fears, they tell you, the biggest fears that you have about an intimate club is not going to come true. What is the biggest fear? If you go on

Reddit and you look up biggest fear about going to a sex club, an intimate club, everyone is going to be unhygienic and ugly. That's people's biggest fears. What if I go? You're going to. I go. You Oh, and I'm the hottest one in the room, and I'm not even that hot. That's what people say on Reddit, okay? People attending the clubs are scared to go see, God forbid, ugly people. That's terrifying for them. Then the next fear is that everyone at the better clubs, right? Sometimes you go to an elite club.

And you're like, okay, well, surely the pool's going to be better here. And then you go and you find really ugly, old, rich dudes, and really hot young girls, and that's it. So there's lots of fears. With Sankton Club, they say this doesn't happen. Because even the old, ugly, rich guys, they get vetted. And you can't be too old and you can't be too ugly. You can never be too rich, though. With Sankton Club, those that have attended say, you don't have to worry.

I mean, first of all, the women outweigh the men in numbers most of the time. And they're all wearing, like, expensive bras that cost over $1,000 for one bra. High heels, everybody's fit, everybody's attractive, everybody's wearing a mask. It looks like Cirque de Soleil meets a Victoria's Secret fashion show. People refer to it as, quote, the most glamorous sex party I've ever been to. It's like the movies Eyes Wide Shut with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Is it? This is all legal?

Yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay. Apparently, a lot of the devotees are not hired. Like, they're not paid for performing. Oh. So I think there's like legal loopholes. Oh.

Okay. I see. Yeah. So what is everyone doing there? Each other. Oh. Okay. So you pay to get in.

You pay to be. a member. First of all, you need to buy membership. And that ranges from 30,000 a year to could be 100,000. And then you pay to get into each party. That's crazy. And then once you get in, I'm sure that there are concessions like free drinks and free food, but that's not really what people are there for. They're there to do other things. Yeah. What? Yeah. Okay. But I think the prices have changed. I think those were the prices at its height. If I'm not mistaken on Reddit recently, they had a couple go in for like $1,000 for the couple. It's insane, yes, it's insane, but they were not paying a whole salary a year to be a member.

Former partygoers would argue, Damon, the original founder of Sinkton, he was so selective about who he led into the doors. It wasn't some cheap sex party where everybody brings a date and you automatically swap. There's a very big difference between a sex party and a Sankton party. The founder Damon states, I have no desire for a Swinger's party here, but I do. do want to open dialogue about how we can come out of our fear of sexuality. So in order to enter, you must send a message on Facebook to sanctum. At least that's how it started. Eventually, they get so big, they have their own like curated submissions page. But it's just not, it's just

very tedious to get an invite. There's no guarantee. To even pay to be a guest at one of the parties, you have to submit photos of yourself. You have to appear presentable. You have to answer questions such as what turns you on the most. Now link all of your social media handles so we can vet you. You're supposed to be honest, but you can't help but feel like there's a right answer for every question. Like, what do you mean is the hottest thing I've done? I feel like this is, I mean, what do you mean? Now I feel like I'm answering an SAT test. You will be likely given an address to pick up your tickets. It's a lingerie shop in Hollywood. You walk in, you tell them what you're here for. The staff walk to the back and they come out with your invite on a silver

platter. You have now wasted approximately two business days of energy to get this invite, but maybe it's worth it and it's all on purpose. Damon the founder says it's the opposite of what most club, what owners want. I absolutely did not want 500 people outside clamoring to get in. I love the puzzle of getting there. But it's deeper than that. It's more meaningful. This club is supposed to, it's our most basic human desires, but beautiful.

The owner calls it quote, spiritual and erotic utopia, where people of like minds and desires can have as much intimate deeds in romance as humanly possible in as many different ways as the imagination can invent. One former performer at the club says about the founder, he is like the modern-day sex Jesus. I kind of feel like he sacrificed himself for the greater good of creating a culture for people that was needed, especially in a city like Los Angeles.

I think that's why they call it like half-pagan sex club, so. Esquire states about one party's guest list. Among those confirmed are a man who owns multiple hotels in New York City, a billionaire from Moscow, several wealthy couples, who are. who have been married for more than 20 years, the producer of a number of well-known television shows, an actress with a reputable IMBD page, the 21-year-old son of a movie producer,

international models, and a couple opening a big new store near Rodeo Drive. According to Business Insider, they state that the alleged celebrity guests at events include Gwyneth Paltrow and, yeah, the founder of Goop. Yeah, and... They just name dropped? Yeah, but they said allegedly,

and Business Insider said it, and they have a lot more money, so go sue them first. Right? So. What? Even the devotees are handpicked with strict guidelines. It's not just about being physically hot. One woman was picked on the spot because, quote,

one woman said to me, I want to perform at Sanctum. And then I want to become a politician and then get outed in a sex scandal so that I can point out the hypocrisy in society. And they said, you're in. How do we know this? They just told the story? Yeah.

They do private masquerades, erotic parties. erotic theater and some of it is very like it's not just eyes wide shut you know how everyone was talking about the Rothschild's parties where they hunt people where they have like the animal masks on they kind of recreate those so you'll have very hot women with giant horse heads very realistic ones that are not hot and not fun they look very real and then they'll have like mary antoinette was doing the deed with her horse but that horse was a woman who dressed up as a horse with a very realistic horse head. Sometimes it's elephant heads,

and they'll try to stick elephant trunks in places where they probably shouldn't be stuck. And there's just like, I think it's all about, I don't know. They used to do a monthly masquerade in New York, and people will fly in from all over the world for these masquerades. Damon, the club owner, says that every sanctum member has to pass an application process, run background checks, basic memberships start at $30,000 a year, and they have Dominus members, which is 100,000 a year, and they will tailor bespoke erotic requests for you.

And just because you have money doesn't mean you can become a top-tier member. They only offer that level of membership to 20 people worldwide. And one of the main reasons that we actually know about Sankton Club on a larger scale is because the founder took to Instagram previously to write, Hunter was a member of Sankton, and I canceled his membership after one party because he was a scumbag. Hunter who? Hunter Biden?

Which Sanctum's former founder, this is after he sold Sanctum, he went online and said Hunter Biden was a former member. Allegedly, this is what he said, not what I said, so don't sue me. That is what? Wow. He says the only reason that he would go against his own former club's rules of not outing a member is, quote, posting what I did on my Instagram about Hunter Biden was me letting people know what type of behavior that he exhibited was something that upset me. I knew the consequences could be me not being part of Sankton anymore, but I was willing to take that. risk. Sankham was bought out by a former member at this point, and they released a prompt

statement. Sankton is a private members club, and they prioritize safety and privacy of our esteemed members above all. Consequently, we neither confirm nor deny the identities or of our attendees. Furthermore, we uphold a strict code of conduct and any infringement leads to a lifetime ban. Please note that Mr. Lawner's membership has been revoked effective immediately. The previous owner. Yes, the founder. When was this? Like, when was it bought out? This is a few years ago. Really? This is recent. Wow. So, like, I'm assuming there are many of these clubs that exist then, right? Yes.

I mean, there's one in New York that's very famous on TikTok. It's called The Box. It's very different. So Sanctum is different in the sense of, like, it's an elite club where everyone is free to explore. The Box is like a bar business club in New York. But I believe there's a few in Europe that a lot of Americans like to try to get into. But they're, I think the way that they're described is they're a bit, like, raunchier. They're a little bit more on the, I don't ask me why I fell into this rabbit hole, but there's so many different variations of clubs.

So some of the clubs, they're more on that raunchy shock value sex factor. This is where it's just all about shock. People say it's not even hot. It's just shocking because like you'll just see someone have bodily fluids empty into a bucket and they're just like swinging it around in the club. It's sometimes unhygienic, just shocking, just what the fuck is happening? And then you have maybe the clubs that are more sexually inclined, but more artistic, maybe more so like a burlesque club. And then you have like the super hot clubs, like strip clubs.

And then you have sex clubs, which are different because you're free to have intimate relations in the establishment or at the party venue. They'll even have beds usually and different types of furniture. And it's set up so that you're encouraged to join in the activity. Most of these clubs in New York, like these public, establishments one year of age, they're not encouraging you to do anything. In fact, you could probably get arrested. Okay. It's just like, that's the entertainment. That's the show. I see, I see, I see. But sanctum, it's, there's a show and there's an interactive element. Okay. And then there are clubs where

there are no shows. Lots in Vegas where there's tons of rooms with tons of mattresses and beds that I think you should probably like do a blue light or a black light, whatever you black light on. And they're like swingers clubs. So there's no show. but lots of like-minded people gather and they will do things with each other. So it's like sanctum without the show. Right. Okay. I see. That makes sense. So there's like lots of different variations. And there are an alarming amount of girls on Reddit that were invited to one of these establishments by their boyfriend.

And they were not specified on which kind of establishment that they were invited to because they all thought they were going to be like the box in New York. And then they end up in like a Las Vegas swingers club. So just be very careful. That's alarming. Yeah. And there's also lots of. of Reddit posts of people who have gone to different establishments and had fantastic times, phenomenal times, best times of their lives.

Some people write about how it saved their marriage, which I don't know, right? But there are also people who say, just beware of something that no one tells you about. There will be very specific smells that you will never be able to unsmell. No matter how high end of place is, no matter how hygienic a place is, when you have that many people and you have that many bodily fluids and you have that many activities taking place in a closed space, there will be smells, and you will get a whiff of that smell, and you will never forget it. In the bad way? Yeah.

Oh, God. Even one of the journalists that went to the Singdom Club, one of the parties, says, everything was so high-end, so beautiful. Every woman felt like a supermodel. Everybody was hot. Even the guys were hot, and they're all dressed to the nines with these fancy masks. It's a masquerade party. But then they went into the bathroom to fix their lipstick, and someone had just taken a number two, because money can't buy your way out of digestive issues.

So it was very smelly in that one bathroom. That's all they said. Okay, but that's a different. Yeah, that's a very different story. It's just like a bathroom smell. Yeah. But there's just scents involved in everywhere. That's what they say.

But Sanctum has had its own share of lots of scandals. There was a former member of Sanctum that left, and they accused Sanctum of admitting a performer who had an active STD. That became a whole scandal. But the worst scandal to come out of Sanctum Club, The worst thing, I don't even think you could call it a scandal, is when one member of the Sanctum Club tried to have another member killed. Cavalya is what you would consider an equestrian fantasy.

This is the horse show, no new to, this is completely unrelated to Sanctum Club. Cavalya, it's Cirque de Saleh meets the horse shows. It's like a blend of horseback riding and doing flips. And it's so much about the horses. The performance is built around the idea that the horses are the main show. Humans are the side plots. So you see this stage and it's enormous. There's water tanks that they have to fill to look like a beach almost and the horses are galloping through the sand and the water and the horses are just, there's acrobats flying in the air. There's tight ropes. There's acrobats doing handstands on the horses as they're galloping. One performance, dangerous, one of the most dangerous performances really of Kavalia, includes a writer standing with one foot on one horse, another foot on the other horse, while the horse is weak. patterns and jump obstacles. There's very little margin for error. And you know, you have to know a horse really well. These types of performers say you have to be able to see when a horse's ear flicks

just a little bit. Because even like a little ear flick of the horse, maybe they're getting spooked by something. Maybe they're agitated. Maybe something is uncomfortable in their hoof, like their little hoof. During its peak, Cavalya was bringing in $40 million a year. But they have since filed for bankruptcy, citing that they are close to $30 million in debt. But that was you know, that's recent in this year. A few years ago, they were at its peak. That's when Tatiana and Mark Remley decide that they're going to take Cavalia down. They want to compete with Cavalia and make their own horse show, but better and probably hotter. Tatiana, with her blonde hair, slightly covering her face, she tells a local reporter in San Diego who's reporting on this,

just like this massive red tent. And they find out it's called Vallitar, the new horse show that's coming into business soon. She says, when I was around 14, I went to a Russian Kazakh circus. It's different than your regular circuses in the U.S. It's just stunning. A lot of amazing writing, writing with a writer going under the horse, under the belly, at a, you know, fast gallop, just edge of your seat suspension, just intensity, and it hit me. It was just this desire started going into me to want to create a show that's different from anything that's ever been created. I'm so excited. This is my dream, come true and I want to bring this magic to the lives of everyone that will allow me to bring it to

them. A lot of people love horses and can't have them. And so by coming here, they live this dream and they can touch them and come close to them and see them and experience the magic. What year was this? This was early. This was like they went, I believe they closed down in 2019. How long did they run it for? Like a few years? Two shows, like four shows. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. Yeah. Like a month. It was in production for a really long time, but actively in business and you could go watch their horse show, four shows. Okay. The opus of Valatar lies in this gargantuan red tent in the middle of Del Mar, California. It looks like a giant red circus tent for a state fair, but massively bigger.

There are also four small tents connected to the big one. Collectively, under this tent, it's 45,000 square feet. It's a huge tent. That's bigger than a neighborhood suburban shopping center. fit inside of this giant red weatherproof tent held up by this massive steel structure. The tents alone costs over $2.1 million. The plan is this. Mark Remley is a tech entrepreneur.

We like some of his software. What the fuck does he know about horses? Nothing. Mark Remley knows nothing about horses. The husband. Yeah. Tatiana the wife, Tatiana Remley, has been riding horses ever since she was a kid. But is she an equestrian? Is she the best horse rider?

Probably not. You say he's a tech founder? Is he like really loaded? Like a billionaire? No, he's worth about $30 million. He's not a billionaire. His tech corporation was SignalCorp, unrelated to Signal Messaging app, but they were a defense contractor.

I guess we don't like some of the software. But anyway, Tatiana has been riding horses ever since she was a kid. And she thinks, I got it. I'm going to do Valatar. I'm going to plan the show. We're going to fly in all of these writers, all of these directors, producers, performers from all over the country and be a part of this exciting mission. You want to see someone do a headstand on a moving horse? You got to come to Valatar.

Or you could go to Cavalya that's like 20 minutes away, but no, come to Valatar. It's better, it's newer, and Tatiana is going to be the face of it. There are billboards put up all over Southern California and randomly, in seemingly bizarre places in the West Coast where Valatar is not even present, like Seattle. We'll get there. The show has these, um, The billboard shows these two edited stallions, black stallions with their mains like in the air. And they're facing in opposite directions. And then Tatiana is in the middle holding a stick. It kind of looks like an AI generated medieval times type of poster or like a strip club billboard.

That's what most people describe it as. The marketing feels a bit seductive. Like I don't know if this is a family-friendly horse show. I don't know what this is, really. But after bringing in a team of producers, directors, they put together. this choreographed performance that's ready to go. They have to get housing for all the performers. They have to feed the horses, insurance, a parking lot, administrative work, HR. They got to spend over $20 million on this project. But once they launch in November, they have this whole plan.

November and December, they're going to have 45 shows in two months. The launch party, the most important night for everybody. The launch party is what sets the tone for the rest of the performances. If I go to a launch party, I'm expecting it to be the vision, the essence of the entire company's mission in one night of good food and hopefully a free drink or two because networking is incredibly awkward. Tatiana, I don't know what's happening here. She's holding a belt in one hand. The rest of the belt is tied around her husband Mark's neck and she's leading him around like a dog. I don't even think you lead a horse around like that so I didn't understand the marketing vision. But the whole launch party, she's just like walking him around like a dog.

Okay. So he's supposed to be like a horse that she's like walking around? Is that what it is? I don't even think they thought that far. I don't even think it's cohesive marketing. I think that's just what they're into. And everyone was just confused by what's going on. Okay.

And there are just full forums about lessons that you are not prepared for until you start your own business. And then you just kind of learn it the shitty way. Like the cheapest client is the most expensive client. I don't know what that means, but a lot of business owners were sounding off in the comments. Like, exactly. The cheapest client? Is the most expensive client.

Ah, that makes sense. I guess your cheapest client is going to cost you the most money or whatever, right? But when you start a business with horses, probably the biggest alarming red flag you'll learn as a business owner is when the horses start going missing. Something is very wrong. One producer of the show Vallatar, let's call her Emma. She invested over $25,000 of her own money into Valatatari. She moved here with her horses. And after two performances, Valatar had two performances, opening night and the second performance,

there's just a lot that could have been done better. They gather all the performers, producers, directors, all the staff in the massive tent, maybe not the horses. And I imagine there's this very uplifting, motivating, but realistic conversation of like, let's take a few days off. Let's get some rest. Let's recoup. We did good, but we can do better.

You know, let's think about all the ways that we can fix these little things. You know, we had one customer who said this, another person did this. Obviously, this was a big massive failure because we had a line of complaints like this. The shows themselves weren't necessarily horrendous, but the turnout was a lot slower than expected, way slower, a lot of empty sleets. I mean, it just made an uncomfortable opening night. But also, there were just awkward moments in the show that can fix. Nevertheless, everybody gets a few days off except Emma. She comes back because she's got to feed the horses.

The horses don't know what an off day is. They need to eat. And when she goes to the stables, a good chunk of the horses are gone. They're missing. And they're all the Remley couple's personal horses. It's weird, but Tatiana is always doing weird things. Emma doesn't even think anything of it. She leaves and then comes back that night to check up on the horses again.

And pretty much all the Remley horses are gone. And so she's asking around, and one of the other staffers, who's not really part of the performance, but maybe more so keeping the grounds, they're like, oh, yeah, the Remley said something about how they were going to do a photo shoot, so they took all the horses for the photo shoot. Emma checks in the back. They didn't just take the horses. They took their harnesses, their taxed, the cabinets were filled with medicine for the horses, all gone.

Emma starts freaking out. She tries to calling the Remlays to figure out what's going on if they know that their horses are missing. And when she gets a response, it's very cold as if they didn't just spend the past few months of their lives completely intertwined, trying to plan this entirely new horse show. She gets a response. The show is being canceled due to poor ticket sales. This is after $20 million invested? Yes. That is bizarre.

That's just it. Rumleys don't come back, they take their horses, they leave everybody, everybody else's horses, the giant red circus tent, they just leave 26 horses, 21 performers, five kids, one dog and one cat completely stranded. Nobody was paid. Nobody has money to transport themselves, let alone a horse safely back to their home. Nobody even has money to feed the horses because that was supposed to be included. Everyone, for a lack of better words, they were just left to starve. So what the hell went wrong? A competitive horse rider who was brought in to help direct the show says,

Yeah, well, the Remleys had no idea what they were doing about anything, which is pretty accurate. Cavalya, the experienced horse show, just 23 miles away. Why would anyone go to Vallatar? But even though they have no clue what they're doing, the director says, it quickly became the Mark and Tatiana show, except neither of them are horse people, and neither of them are show people. So what are we doing? They have no clue what they're doing, and that is going to lead them to lead them to

leave a huge group of people and the rest of the San Diego community who now has to pick up and they're all volunteering to try and feed the horses and get everybody back home because Del Mar, California is a pretty tight-knit community. They are angry at the Remley's and they want the Remley's to pay their dues, which ultimately ends with a decapitated horse statue head ending up in the Remley family bed. And when they have that many enemies, it's really hard to say who's after Mark and Tatiana. So with that being said, that is going to be part one of the audio podcast for the Mark Remley and Tatiana Remley case. Let me know in the comments, what are your thoughts? And I will see you very soon for part two.