A few tweets from Zayat indicate he’s really furious about this and vowing to get to the bottom of what really happened to Nehro.
I do wonder if Asmussen will lose a significant number of clients over this. Or fire Blasi, who on the face of it looks like the real villain.
[QUOTE=Mara;7487722]
A few tweets from Zayat indicate he’s really furious about this and vowing to get to the bottom of what really happened to Nehro.
I do wonder if Asmussen will lose a significant number of clients over this. Or fire Blasi, who on the face of it looks like the real villain.[/QUOTE]
I doubt it, when an owner comes to a barn so clean they can eat of the floor and sees their horses perky, happy, and healthy… Any client that believes what Joe Drape says probably isn’t a client worth having :lol:
Every trainer has had a horse they were happy to lose. I know I have. Not because they were broke down, I never ran a sore horse ever. I took fantastic care of every single horse that set foot in my shedrow but there were some of them I was happy to see go. Some of them are PITA’s not to be confused with PETA!
drugs, drugs and more drugs; I thought this was always exaggerated also until I…
drugs, drugs and more drugs; I thought this was always exaggerated also until I worked with a “race tracker” who drugged horses on the farm!; not much money to be won there:mad: There was a VERY NICE :)3 year old colt who had fractured thesesamoids in BOTH back legs:eek: He kept :eek:him on the track on the farm; When he started to buck his shins, I refused to get on him; found someone who, would have him gelded standing; his KIDNEYS were failing, from all the drugs, I’m sure , The vet said later that he, the trainer must have given him cocaine/ heroin:eek: to get him to gallop as he did:no: from there I went to Lazy Lane where Graham Motion :)was the trainer and the horses were treated like sacred beings :)which IS quite right in my book:yes:
has this been shown up north , yet?
in NYRA :lol:areas?
I have not and probably will not watch the video so forgive me for asking if the video showed it.
I have not worked for an operation as large as Assmussens, but the majority of the trainers that I have worked for, I would have had no idea if they were asking my fellow grooms to lie on their paperwork. Maybe as a barn foreman, I might be involved in the paperwork but not as a groom and especially not as a relatively new groom.
Maybe if this undercover asshat was posing as an illegal?
It just doesn’t seem reasonable to me.
I don’t have time to watch the video or read the whole thing right now, but the story reminds me of the Luxury of Time situation from a couple of years ago.
The mare Luxury of Time and some other broodies were dumped at a kill auction by one of the Asmussens and thankfully Golden Eagle Farm, her breeder, was alerted and grabbed her and took her in. Unfortunately she was sick when she arrived and ended up dying. They set up a charity memorial fund in her honor.
I digress.
I don’t post much these days but I have a few things to say. Forget the pulses lingo, what none of you grasped is what the feet were like. Having had t ge yout on a few with “nubs” as feet I can tell you it’s quite shocking and painful. Basically a resectioning of the hoofthen held together with poxy and glue. It abcesses and has to be redone frequently. Missed training, drugs, freezing feet, whatever it takes to keep them going. But if it makes you feel better to blow up the pulses argument, work away.
As long as everyone keeps explaining it all away and defending practices which need to stop it will keep happening. I worked in top barns where appearances made things look all about the horses. They were looked after. They were also expected to get it done no matter what the costs. I have issues with all this anti slaughter campaigning and then explaining away the treatments and extremes these horses go through. At the end of the day do you wanna spend 20 odd years looking after a horse that’s been tapped and injected multiple multiple times. I’m guessing not. I know those people and the vets. I saw the ugly side of the joint taps going wrong. Bye bye horsie. Infected joint. It happens more than you think especially when it’s just something that’s done to every horse in a barn. SWT done correctly can be useful but taking.away pain doesn’t mean healed. Enough studies to warn of dangers of this therspy too. Not all scare mongering. But just get away from Drape and PETA for a moment and think about what you saw as horseman.
Sorry for the mistakes. This forum is brutal from a phone.
Terri
Obviously, a lot in the video is taken out of context or edited, and much of it is misleading. I don’t have a problem with Blasi’s swearing or some of the things he said. People in high stress jobs say things that sound awful when taken out of context. (I’ve done it - a combination of venting, black humor and hyperbole.) But that is different than saying the tape is fake, or that no PETA investigator would have lasted with Asmussen. I think a better theory is that the investigator was a hot, young woman, who was tougher and more determined than she looked.
The stuff about Nehro is hard to explain. Some of you are jumping on the comment about “pulse” - but you are wrong. All horses have digital pulses. It’s just stronger if there is inflammation, but an experienced person can detect a normal pulse. And you have to listen to that comment in context, and it’s quite obvious they weren’t checking for founder 
How do you explain “I know the f**er hurts” and “This is treacherous”? That part of the tape wasn’t edited but is one continuous conversation. As Equilibrium just posted (as I was still typing), it’s everything else in that part of the tape that’s disturbing.
And how about Blasi’s comment about how he will fool the stewards? And how do you explain his words about the shocking devices? He may have been posturing to impress a hot investigator (and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s burnt out), but he’s the one who mentioned names. And how do you explain the comments about undocumented laborers coming right out of Blasi’s mouth?
What I took away from the video:
-PETA is still brilliant at spinning facts into the story they want to tell.
-Nehro had crap feet and shouldn’t have been running. That’s not excusable, but it happens in every.single.discipline. It’s an unfortunate truth of the horse world that horses with crappy feet are still forced to work on them, even if uncomfortable. How many times do we see similar (albeit less dramatic) hoof scenarios on this very forum?? If that’s the worst you can show me from a racing barn, then you better shut down the entire pleasure horse industry as well.
-Scott Blasi is kinda an a**hole.
:lol:
I wouldn’t be surprised if Zayat pulls his horses, only because Zayat is fickle. He bounces around between all the top barns. But I don’t think any permanent damage will be done between him and Asmussen.
Blasi would probably get fired over this at any other operation, only because he made himself look like an idiot and a liability. But I doubt that will happen in this situation. I don’t expect any comment or retaliation from the Asmussen camp-- it will be business as usual until this blows over. And it will blow over, because I don’t think PETA came away with any footage that couldn’t be explained when put in the correct context.
ETA: And for those who were struck with horror by this “day in the life” type video: know that while this footage is typical, not every barn runs in this manner. The Asmussen barn is not a “warm and fuzzy” place where horses are coddled and treated like pets-- it’s a busy, large operation that gets results. No different than many/most top show barns. They do what they need to do to win, and it works. Personally, I would not want that for my own horse. But at the same time, if a horse I bred or owned ended up there, I would know the horse would receive more than adequate care.
PETA is always going to butt heads with anyone who works their horses. They have unrealistic standards, believing all animals should be released to the wild or live in the absolute lap of luxury where nothing is ever expected of them.
Man, I’m good at rambling! :lol:
Another big black eye for the industry. I don’t think this is made up, edited for shock value, sure. Blasi is rude, crude, but somewhat of a typical racetracker, that’s a fact. I’m not saying that ALL racetrackers behave or talk this way, but I’m not shocked. Also remember that there is hours of footage, these were just snippets cobbled together to make a short video for shock value.
I have been in many good barns over the 30 years I spent on the racetrack, and unfortunately on the backs of many horses that should have not been subjected to training everyday. I saw the abuse, but you learn to shrug it off to a certain degree. I’ve refused to get on horses that were to sore to gallop, sometimes the trainers listened, or they found someone else willing to get on them.
I think what will be the most troubling for the Asmussen barn is the undocumented worker issue. It has gone on forever on the backside (and they are quite good at producing fake documents). But not with the help of their employer, bad stuff. As far as the machines and Gary, no surprise their either, except for his stupidity in admitting it. Some skeletons are best left in the closet.
I sat here last night and was happy with my decision to leave the track several years ago, I love the sport, but was saddened by the steady decline in horsemanship over the years. I’m embarrassed for the industry over this video, it’s disturbing, but not surprising.
My problem with all of this is that PETA was the org doing the “investigation.”
I don’t doubt there’s a lot of stuff going on that we’d all find appalling. I’ve definitely got an issue with the NY Times using video and “investigations” done by an advocacy group.
If the Times thought there was a problem they should be doing their own investigation.
As for folks caught on hidden camera saying stuff about what they did in their teens, well, I expect we all say stuff we wouldn’t want quoted when we’re relaxing with friends and have no idea someone is recording every word we say.
[QUOTE=Equilibrium;7487992]
I don’t post much these days but I have a few things to say. Forget the pulses lingo, what none of you grasped is what the feet were like. Having had t ge yout on a few with “nubs” as feet I can tell you it’s quite shocking and painful. Basically a resectioning of the hoofthen held together with poxy and glue. It abcesses and has to be redone frequently. Missed training, drugs, freezing feet, whatever it takes to keep them going. But if it makes you feel better to blow up the pulses argument, work away.
As long as everyone keeps explaining it all away and defending practices which need to stop it will keep happening. I worked in top barns where appearances made things look all about the horses. They were looked after. They were also expected to get it done no matter what the costs. I have issues with all this anti slaughter campaigning and then explaining away the treatments and extremes these horses go through. At the end of the day do you wanna spend 20 odd years looking after a horse that’s been tapped and injected multiple multiple times. I’m guessing not. I know those people and the vets. I saw the ugly side of the joint taps going wrong. Bye bye horsie. Infected joint. It happens more than you think especially when it’s just something that’s done to every horse in a barn. SWT done correctly can be useful but taking.away pain doesn’t mean healed. Enough studies to warn of dangers of this therspy too. Not all scare mongering. But just get away from Drape and PETA for a moment and think about what you saw as horseman.[/QUOTE]
He is far from the only one. Being stabled at Pimlico I have seen the best of the best every year. Some of the stuff I saw was amazing. If they had been some cheap claimer they would have been retired or shipped off to New Holland back in the day. But to prep for the Preakness they just built them new feet if needed or did whatever else they needed to get out there. My vet’s quote after Charismatic broke down was “I am not surprised, that horse was held together with duct tape.” Before anyone asks, he also told me Barbaro didn’t have a pimple on him before the race. I actually took photos of them building Big Brown a hoof which may be why Kent wet his pants in the Belmont.
GS admits to using a machine, if he had been caught way back when we would have never heard of him. And basically you never hear when GS used the machine, only that he won the race. Could have been last week, but we can assume it was years ago. That offense can mean a lifetime ban. In reality, he has admitted guilt on tape, I don’t care where he is today in his career, reality is that he should have never made it to this point. There should be an investigation, and technically he should be suspended today.
First, let me say I don’t condone any of this behavior. Bottom line for me is that if people in positions of power were doing their jobs and rooting out bad behavior, then PETA wouldn’t have anything to “investigate.”
But I also wonder whether you think that anyone who was secretly taped while talking to friends about youthful indiscretions with drugs like marijuana should be prosecuted since we’ve now got him/her on tape?
And then there is this. Wonder what would happen if someone went undercover with a camera at PETA? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-j-winograd/peta-kills-puppies-kittens_b_2979220.html
Sport Arab, I guess it would depend if they changed the outcome of a race…And I’m definitely not a PETA supporter in any way shape or form. At this point I don’t think it really matters who investigated this. The words speak for themselves. And once again, I will say that according to this particular snippit of video, he never says when he used the machine. Something to think about. I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t really know how this video and whatever else they have will affect them, but there are now three states investigating, so it must hold some weight IMO.
Did Gary ever ride QHs?
[QUOTE=Laurierace;7488192]
Did Gary ever ride QHs?[/QUOTE]
I believe so, I believe his father was a QH trainer or somehow involved.
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