[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Kasept

For the hysterically overwrought (while simultaneously too lazy to seek out and read the 200+ page KHRC investigation findings), here's a direct link: http://www.khrc.ky.gov/Pages/default.aspx

After reading some of the report, I see that Santana denied using the machine. I guess that means he didn't use it. I guess Blasi just made that up.

With regard to Nehro, Blasi said it was disgraceful that the horse was not retired. Blasi spent a lot of time with that horse and said the horse had terrible feet and should have been retired. He sounded like he was angry with Zayat for not retiring the horse. I obviously do not hold that against Blasi. I hold it against Zayat. The point is that this is not an isolated incident. There are plenty of horses out there that should not be running. Sometimes it is the owner who refuses to give a horse time off and sometimes it is the trainer who refuses to give a horse time off. I don't know what the answer is to that kind of thing. Maybe the state vets need to be even more stringent on which horses are allowed to run. The latest research has shown that most breakdowns are due to pre-existing conditions. It is usually a bunch of BS when they claim that the horse "must have taken a bad step".

The bottom line is that the sport needs to be cleaned up. I don't know anyone who would deny that. As I said before, there was nothing earth shattering on the PETA video. Some of the stuff was legitimate. Some of the stuff was a little misleading. But overall I'm not going to have a problem with a person or group that says the sport needs to be cleaned up. The sport does need to be cleaned up. The truth of the matter is that if there were hidden cameras and hidden microphones in every barn and everything that went on (both good and bad) was revealed, it would be far more damaging than anything on the PETA video. In another words, I think that people would be outraged if they knew everything that went on on the backstretch. I'm not saying that there aren't good people on the backstretch. There are plenty of good people that love their horses. But there are also plenty of people that just look at the horses as a commodity, and they have very little feeling for the horses.