Tatyana Remley appears in two photos. (Facebook)
A California woman who once planned to mesmerize national audiences with a Roman-like equestrian spectacle is now heading to prison for trying to have her estranged husband, and former business partner in the spectacularly failed horse show venture, murdered.
Tatyana Remley, 43, pleaded guilty last week to one count each of solicitation to commit murder and possessing a loaded and concealed firearm not registered to her, according to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. A second gun-related charge was dropped.
The defendant admitted she aimed to have her husband, Mark Remley, killed. Vista Superior Court Judge David Danielson swiftly sentenced her to three years and eight months in state prison.
Various local media outlets in the southern region of the Golden State reported on the plea-and-sentencing – which came weeks before the defendant was slated to attend a preliminary hearing in her case.
In August 2023, the would-be murderess was arrested at a Starbucks in the small coastal city of Solana Beach. Authorities conducted a sting operation after a mutual friend told Mark Remley they had been offered $2 million by Tatyana Remley in July 2023 to carry out the hit.
That friend, of course, did no such thing. So, Tatyana Remley, a former polo player, shopped around to try and obtain the murder for hire.
Meeting with an undercover detective, the defendant said she wanted her estranged husband killed and his body to be vanished. Tatyana Remley brought three guns to the meeting – as well as some cash intended as a down payment on Mark Remley’s death.
Mark Remley also alleged his wayward wife burned down his home days after she offered their mutual friend millions to have him killed. That alleged arson, however, was investigated but never charged.
At the time of her arrest, Tatyana Remley had decamped to Phoenix, Arizona and considered herself “single,” according to her Facebook page. She has been in a Santee jail since just after the sting operation.
The marriage was unhealthy years before the woman’s attempts to purchase a violent dissolution of those bonds. And infamously so.
In 2012, the wealthy couple spent millions on a circus-like horse show that preemptively betrayed obvious influences, according to a lengthy dissection of the disaster by The San Diego Union-Tribune.
“It’s like Cirque du Soleil with horses,” she once told a local TV station, the paper reported, “but it’s its own type of show.”
Helmed by Las Vegas-based horse show veteran Erik Martonovich, the show dubbed “Valitar” was essentially meant to ape and surpass “Cavalia,” an horse-and-human-themed ballet that features music, riding, acrobatics, and dancing. The established show, which tours the world, was founded by a co-founder of Cirque du Soleil itself.
Saddling up to a certain sort of vanity, promotional materials for “Valitar” prominently featured Tatyana Remley’s face and figure – if not her own middle-of-the-road horse-riding skills. That is, the woman’s certainly capable horse-riding did appear in the show – though staff and audiences didn’t really understand why.
“She didn’t do any of the stunts,” Roza Tabasa, the show’s hospitality manager told the paper. “But in the end, when the whole cast lined up and everybody is applauding, this blonde lady comes down the center, the other cast members part for her — and there’s silence. People are thinking, ‘Who’s she? Oh, it’s the lady in the poster.””
After five performances and mediocre reviews, the horses of “Valitar” bit down on their last bridles and, as such, the show bit the dust.
Vendors, salaries, and bills were left unpaid just before Thanksgiving 2012. The show’s operating capital was auctioned for the equivalent of scrap in an effort to pay down debts. Lawsuits were filed.
“They had no clue what they were doing — about anything,” Martonovich, also a competitive rider, told the Union-Tribune in early 2013. “They weren’t horse people and they weren’t show people.”
Mark Remley and Tatyana Remley together in a Facebook photo.
And, even before the show began, there were warning signs: about the validity of “Valitar” and about the Remley’s marital dedication.
Married in 2011, the husband initially filed for divorce months before the show was set to premiere. The show’s first director was clued in to the discord issue, but convinced to stay on, at least for awhile, by the money and co-ownership interests he was offered.
The Remleys continued their 12-year marriage through multiple divorce filings and reconciliations, living a jet-setting lifestyle, with multiple homes, cars, and luxury goods, according to The Coast News.
Tatyana Remley filed for divorce again as recently as last summer.
The couple had previously separated, for likely the final time, in May 2023 amidst allegations of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse — all of which Mark Remley has adamantly denied in the press.
Still, divorce never came.
That seems likely to change now.
Law&Crime reached out to the San Diego District Attorney’s Office for comment.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
