That is the NYT's own manufactured number based on their 'study' utilizing charts with 'broke down', 'vanned off' as their reference points. It's also a conflated number including Quarter Horse racing. They quote it endlessly despite there being no actual substantiation.

This is correct.

Holy crap!

Per Marcus Hersh on twitter, Assmussen fired Scott Blasi.

Let me say something I said 15 years ago on the old AOL horse racing boards.

The American people have become more and more divorced from the reality of dealing with animals. Formerly many people grew up on farms or at least rural communities, or had close relatives they visited, and liked, who did so. Many also hunted.

Now, for most Americans, their relationship to animals are strictly as pets (excuse me, in 15 years the term "pet" has become increasing stigmatized--"animal companions" or whatever). Many still consume other animals as "food", although they are completely removed from dealing with the reality of that food chain.

When it comes to horses, however, the overwhelming paradigm that newcomers implicitly apply to race horses is "pets" (I'll stick with the old school term). They are not interested in eating them, and to the extent they ever really dealt with a horse it is riding a pony (or having their kids do so).

Standards of conduct towards horses that were generally acceptable (to the extent they were even known) in past generations simply are not going to fly with this kind of populace. You can say "Nothing new here"--but that is not an answer to a population with different values than you. Some of you sound like the hapless old religious farts who cannot understand how the ground shifted under them on gay rights, or weed, or whatever. Your old certitudes about what is acceptable are just that--yours.

This has been on ongoing process--prior to the 70s or 80s, for example, horses were a disposable commodity in making films. Many were killed or injured filming westerns, for example, with trip wires and the like. That has been out of bounds for a while now.

Horse racing as we know it will not exist in the US in another generation--two at the most. What we will have, I don't know. But it won't be what is on that videotape, "selectively edited" or not. Blaming PETA, as despicable as it is, and the NYT is a distraction.

No surprise there.

I saw that coming.
http://www.drf.com/news/blasi-fired-...mplaints-video

It was a well edited video. My initial reaction to it was..."Did Blasi have relations with that woman?"

That is the only way I could see him disclosing the undocumented worker "procedure".

As of right now, the video is hardly viral. 125,000+ views in 4 days has to be disappointing for the woman scorned and her new pals.

Was she a long-time girlfriend, or just a young person who applied as a hotwalker who charmed into dating for a few months?

Context?
 

I agree with the fact that this tape is a cherry picked propaganda tape, and I think Lasix is a good thing, but Santana sure as hell looks bad and he should have a problem. Mark it down, his win % will drop now that this happened. The machine will be at that agent's house that has the "who are you going to believe? Me or that tape?" A strategy that should have been silence.

Crisis reveals character more than it builds it. The fact that Assmussen just threw Blasi out when you know damn well he knew everything that was going on reveals what a worm he is. There were problems on the tape and obviously Zayat would be offended (he probably should have been offended at the lack of big Steve at the stable), but Steve and him have already kissed and made up, insuring Tapiture will run up the track at Churchill like most of them he enters in that race on a yearly basis.

It sickens me that there is always a fall guy when firing them usually makes everyone look worse than trying to defend most of it. Asmussen will get a hand slap and be back at it soon enough. New York taxpayers will foot the bill to come to the realizations Mr. Byk (as usual) outlined that we already know. (P.s. Some jackass in Congress will launch one as well so we can all participate by paying for the witch hunt which will be the equivalent of the equine Marshall Report), and Blasi will be like Oswald "acting alone" and Steve will run the stable from across the street for a while while he "learns his lesson and sends everyone to sensitivity training or some other waste of time" and Santana will be exonerated but punished and Blasi will have years to overcome in this industry and will be persona non-grata because we always have to turn on people when they are basically exactly how we thought they were.

Who in the hell could be under surveillance for years and not have a tirade now and then in our industry? It's the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. The bigger concern to me is stable and backside security when these nuts can get to our horses for years. For crying out loud, they have a reputation they wear proudly of a half-assed terrorist group. I have horses at Santa Anita/Del Mar and I would lose it if I knew a group like PETA was just wondering around the shed row. That's what New York should investigate. That, and ask the Feds what the policy is on illegals? Oh wait, we don't have one ( I don't know why this is a concern of PETA by the way since it does not effect animal safety or treatment, but since they raised it, what is their idea?). It's just like our Middle East policy. There, I saved the state money and did the report.


Oh well. More adversity for the sport we love, and just like every competitive sport, an expose can be done showing the people being competitive. Shocker to no one but PETA and the people that listen to them. Oh well, I'll be out there today and I'll be at Churchill with a line through Tapiture. I can't wait until those idiots on TV talk about it for 3 hours straight instead of shutting up. When those guys get done, can you imagine the outrage from the PETA supporters if somehow Tapiture wins? The timing would be like Tonya Harding winning gold instead of falling on her ass.

There is enough adversity in the sport without this crap, but it's the world we live in. Sad indeed.

As I get older I tend to rely less on my memory cause it can be off...especially when concerning racetrackers.

But...I was under the assumption that he was married to Helen Pitts. So I would guess she wasn't a long-time girlfriend.

It's Scott's brother that is married to Helen Pitts..

She's married to his brother Greg

My mistake.

If I were Scott...I would claim it was his split personality, Nicky Santoro, that was at the barn for those 4 months.

It could work. A little rehab, medication, and he'll be back on the track next spring.

I'd being looking to relocate east, as in the middle east.

"The American people have become more and more divorced from the reality of dealing with animals."

True story. Granted, I haven't had the time to watch all of the video but nothing I've heard or seen has even remotely shocked me. Yes, both legal and illegal performance-enhancing drugs are used on horses. Yes, hooves are patched together repeatedly in hopes of holding up through another race/class/event. Yes, joints are pin fired,injected and whatever. All manners of therapies are used. Horses are raced/shown when they are unsound. Illegal workers are employed on the backside (as well as at many other non-horse related jobs).
I can tell you from experience that these practices are not exclusive to the racing world. They are present in the worlds of dressage, reining, jumping, and western pleasure. Heck, this goes on at the weekend 4H shows. Anytime that money or glory is involved with horses there will be people who will cheat, people who will eek every drop they can out of a horse, even people who will knowingly use up and throw away a horse , all in the name of winning.

But, as Tector said, none of this is not going to fly with the general population. I don't know what the answer is, but something is going to have to change, or horse racing will be a sport of the past.

"Health Care Facility" "Anger Management"

Or just don't curse in a job where a hyper-sensitive society is watching your every move.

Or better yet a new type of beer that temporarily takes away your ability to speak. :D

Go watch Braveheart and tell me that horses werent hurt in the filming, great movie but not if you were a horse in some of these battle scenes

Someone created a not so nice website revealing her identity.

Horses weren't hurt in the filming. They used mechanical ones for the graphic stuff in the battle scenes. Mel Gibson took great pride in how angry animal rights people got about the movie because he took it to mean the mechanical ones were convincing. Truth.

No linky? Tease.

petagirl.com

Here is TDN's opinion:

http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com...Nb37Kh0k.email

What does PETA want? They dont provide an alternative or solution. If they want to stop Horse Racing then what happens to all these horses? Kill them?
Give them to some poor rancher/farmer who cant afford to take care of them?
If it weren't for these rich horse owners to take care of them (food, meds), most of them would have died already sans the cursing. As much as PETA fails to see it, horse racing is a necessary "evil" for the well-being of the breed.

Fine work

My goodness. Someone out there has a potty mouth to rival Blasi.

I see this is not her first undercover rodeo:

http://www.thebaynet.com/news/index....story_ID/29195

yep....someone is seriously pissed...

Saw she graduated 3rd in her class at Syracuse in '09.

One dedicated, cold blooded, black widow.

Of course, the internet being the internet, she's now going to get all kinds of death threats from crazy people and horse racing will get blamed for that, too.

Blasi probably wasn't the doctor or lawyer her parents had hoped she would bring home.

Undercover work........dirty and thankless, most times a lose/lose result

Go read my post and tell me where I said anything about whether horses have been hurt to make film. Sheesh, I didn't even mention it!!

Guess the barn gag order is off?

Whoever made that petagirl.com website is just as slimy as they accuse the girl of being. Completely classless to call her all those degrading names and give out her number. At least stick to the issue of the horses.

That website is brutal. Good God.

Blasi got trolled into the unemployment office...but hey, at least he got a swell consolation prize in advance.

Shes kinda sexy.

:tro:

SOP for the internet. A female causes trouble? She's a SLUT!

I agree that the site doesn't help the issue at all. It just makes horse racing come across as misogynistic, too.

And fact is, there's plenty in that video to criticize. It's poorly done propaganda (voice over? Srsly?). It really depends on Blasi swearing like a fleet of sailors to obscure some of what he's actually saying (racehorses will "break your heart" ever time, which isn't what someone who doesn't care about them would say) and, after a lot of complaining, stating that he didn't have an issue with a horse being scratched. Ooh! Smoking gun! :rolleyes:

The biggest issues are, I think, the allegations of fake Social Security IDs and if that's true, Asmussen is going to be in a lot of trouble with the IRS, but that doesn't have anything to do with PETA's agenda. But honestly, I couldn't really make out from the video exactly what Asmussen was saying, which is why I think the video relied so heavily on voice-over to convince people they were seeing what PETA wanted them to see.

And that's what I wish racing would take on- say, "Hey, what's on the remaining seven hours? Why aren't you showing anyone that?" Because, having watched the video, if that's the best they could get, with all of the hours of video, it's pretty weak sauce. But no one is calling them on it, probably because everyone is listening to the voice-over.

Here's a piece from Slate on deceptive editing:
http://www.slate.com/articles/video/...a_footage.html

In this case it's about an abortion clinic, but it's the same premise- undercover "clients" and hidden cameras. But it's a great look at selective editing in service to an agenda.

PETA

Penicillin and the ethical treatment of animals.