http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/sports/peta-accuses-two-trainers-of-cruelty-to-horses.html?ref=sports
Nuff said ...
Can\'t say I\'m surprised, horrified maybe.
Let\'s see if the usual suspects defend this as an anomaly. Or better yet, a misunderstanding of the backstretch.
Make sure you watch the video to get the full impact of what someone on a mission and a hidden camera can reveal.
https://secure.peta.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=5345
Roger Stein\'s been hinting at something for a few months, wonder if this is it.
Sickening stuff..Hope they make an example out of them but it will prbably be inadmissable somehow on a technicality because there was no permission granted to record them.
Any lawyers here?? Can the videos be used??
Not a lawyer here. Do you really think they need to introduce these videos as evidence to the horseracing public? Don\'t you think the videos are convincing enough?
Blasi seems like he needs to expand on his vocabulary just a bit. Since he and Asmussen have brought this on themselves, would have loved to listen in on their first conversation after the video was viewed by them. Typically a guy like Asmussen will terminate Blasi and claim the \"I didn\'t know excuse.\"
Another black eye for the sport, but maybe a purge of some of the top cheaters need to occur. We all know who they are.
smalltimer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not a lawyer here. Do you really think they need
> to introduce these videos as evidence to the
> horseracing public? Don\'t you think the videos
> are convincing enough?
I meant as some kind of criminal abuse accusation in court. The video is out so the public already is going to make their judgment based on that but not sure if it would be admissable if there were a criminal case brought against them.
boys will be boys. I bet one could take the 1% of the other 99% of the video taken and make these guys look like angels.
Is this the same Steve Asmussen who is a 2014 nominee for Racing\'s Hall of Fame?
Talk about timing.
From a New Orleans Times Picayune series featuring the Fair Grounds, and how
horsemen and track officials are very upset with the Churchill folks for not pouring
a portion of slots profits back into racetrack improvements:
\"Without new growth strategies, Thoroughbred racing handle will decline 25 percent
in the next decade...only 22 percent of the general public has a favorable
impression of the sport...\"
The article points out that 2013 marked the first time that CD\'s slot revenues were
more than its revenue from racing.
The entire video - https://secure.peta.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=5345
Not taking an issue with your views. At the end of the day, if the powers that be care to pursue the underpayment of wages and the admitted procuring of social security numbers will spell huge trouble. This bunch places themselves in real jeopardy with different governmental agencies, if the Wage and Hour, Social Security Administration, or IRS take an interest in this scenario, it will be very, very damaging to those involved. If the video becomes mainstream and is viewed by the \"non-racing\" community, its gonna be all over for these folks. If Blasi chose to be unflattering about one of the owners, makes one wonder how some of their other owners may be looked at. Just my opinion.
How is Baseball doing after the Steroid Scandal? The NFL now with former Players in their 50\'s walking around like Zombies. The NBA after the late 70\'s and 80\'s when after one NBA Player said 8 out of 10 guys in this League are doing BLOW on a regular basis?
This should serve as an additional wake up call for the powers that be to get more controls in place. Those of us on the inside know there are problems with horses all the time. PETA is like the Anti-Carbon fuel goons. Saving whale types. Deal with this to get the game better and concentrate on your fan base. Go forward.....not in a bunker to hide!!
Re: Not good ... (201 Views)
Posted by: Boscar Obarra (IP Logged)
Date: March 19, 2014 10:38PM
Can\'t say I\'m surprised, horrified maybe.
Let\'s see if the usual suspects defend this as an anomaly. Or better yet, a misunderstanding of the backstretch.
Make sure you watch the video to get the full impact of what someone on a mission and a hidden camera can reveal.
[secure.peta.org]
Roger Stein\'s been hinting at something for a few months, wonder if this is it.
Boscar...you called it...Byk this morning...could have called his take a mile away
Didn\'t hear it yet, but would have taken 1/9
Those anti-carbon fuel goons might have just rattled the cage enough to trigger some changes. I\'d say some thanks are in order.
NYS Gaming Commission preparing to come down like a ton of bricks on Blasi, Assmussen and others.Gov Cuomo may comment to gain political capital. NYRA sure to get beat up also.
If you can take it, watch the full video on the PETA website.
\"Not good\" is an understatement. Scott Blasi comes off just about as despicable as a human being could. I have many questions for my own trainer starting tonight as I\'m absentee most of the time.
Any comments from Millenium on this?
Not trying to defend Blasi\'s vocabulary, but the way this video is spliced together insinuates a lot that Blasi may or may not have been referring to. For instance, Blasi is referring to someone or some horse dying a horrible death. This is just a stand-alone video clip to where Blasi may have been referring to possibly a cancer-patient or a horse or even his own dog. The way the video is produced, you assume that Blasi is referring to Nehro, which may or may not be the case.
That is why this PETA-produced video is dangerous. You chase me around for 4 months and splice together the clips where I\'m pissed off or even joking around and I\'ll look like Charles Manson if you add enough scary music behind it.
Interesting that this video gets a much different response as opposed to \"Joe Dope\" writing about it in the New York Times. Basically saying the same thing. Injured horses are drugged and abused. I think the only difference is that the focus of the Times series was on cheaper horses and here we can see that even the good ones get it.
And please no more about how the rest of us don\'t really understand what goes on on the backstretch and what vets really do blah, blah, blah. Here it is for everyone to see. From a top outfit with access to the best money can buy, not poor barns forced to squeeze the lemon to survive. They WANTED to do this to the horses.
They can test, fine and suspend all they want, there are laws on the books against animal abuse (and that\'s EXACTLY what this is) and they need to be enforced. A junkyard dog gets more protection. You want real change, lock \'em up. A national disgrace.
As Oscar Madison once said
It\'s bail
before jail
so you better
not fail
Courier journal:
J. Reese
Prominent horse owner Maggi Moss, who is well-known in the industry for her efforts to rescue horses at risk of being sent to slaughter, is in a unique position to comment on PETA's allegations of animal mistreatment and law-breaking the organization levied in Kentucky and New York against former Hall of Fame finalist Steve Asmussen and his top assistant, Scott Blasi.
PETA filed its complaints based off what it called a four-month undercover investigation by a PETA investigator who got hired as a hot walker in the stable. The New York Times wrote a story about PETA's charges and ran PETA's nine-minute video compiled from what PETA said was seven hours of secret video-taping in the barn – all of which has become the talk of the sport.
Kentucky will investigate allegations
Moss not only once worked for PETA, but Asmussen trained horses for her for a couple of years, though she ended that relationship a couple of years ago. Tom Amoss has been her main trainer all along.
From an interview I had with Moss Thursday afternoon:
"When I started out as a young lawyer, and I was shutting down puppy mills, I got hired by PETA... I was an animal activist freak, so I thought I wanted to work as a lawyer for PETA. I think I'm an extremist when it comes to animals. I'm over the top. I pick up dead squirrels. I'm nuts. But I will tell you PETA was so off the wall, so eccentric, so political that I felt they were not a group that even I would work for. I quit."
Asked why she no longer has horses with Asmussen, she said, "That's private between Steve and I."
Asked her thoughts on the New York Times story and video: "My first reaction to the video was I was extremely upset.... I will not justify the video but I remembered two things: PETA spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to edit, and that's eight minutes of eight months of video. My second feeling was, knowing Scott personally that he's hot-headed and he's emotional. I'm not happy and I don't justify the video because of a multitude of reasons. But as a lawyer, I thought that's eight minutes of eight months and there are probably literally hundreds of minutes of video that are very loving and good of the sport. So I think that's unfair."
And, she said, "Taking an eight-minute video and stamping all the loving trainers in the world as animal abusers is outrageous. To use this for federal legislation is outrageous.... I'm not denying there aren't abuses by people in racing. I think there are abuses of a far more egregious nature going on that we don't know about. But there are also those types of abuses going on in front of the board of doctors, the board of lawyers, the board of pharmaceuticals. So are all doctors or lawyers bad? And I'm not calling Steve or Scott bad. I'm just saying they did a distorted video that's bad for the industry. Duh, it's bad for the industry. So what do we do? That's the question."
Moss calls for true national leadership in the sport, but says that's not the same thing as getting the federal government involved, which – having worked with federal agencies – she says is a terrible idea.
"I'm hoping it's a huge wake-up call, but not a knee-jerk, politically monied wake-up call," she said.
Moss has taken issue with reporter Joe Drape and New York Times articles before. She and trainer Dale Romans sent them a response to a series of articles critical of the racing industry, taking issue with the stories' accuracy and context.
"We composed not sensational but factual letters," she said. "They not only wouldn't publish them, they wouldn't publish them as guest editorials. They wouldn't even respond to us..... What I learned about Joe Drape and the New York Times is that they didn't care what we had to say. They didn't care about the other side. They didn't care about the thousand plus trainers out there who love their horses."
In related developments Friday, the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame announced it was tabling the Hall of Fame nomination of Asmussen for 2014, citing the promised investigations in New York and Kentucky. The museum picked its wording judiciously. It's nuanced, but tabling has a different connotation than withdrawing or rescinding, which is stickier for someone who was duly nominated and has not been convicted of anything.
Justin Zayat, racing manager for his dad Ahmed Zayat's stable, said on Twitter that his father has instructed him to scratch their Asmussen-trained horses that were entered to run this weekend, "pending further investigation from our side with these matters."
A focal point on the video was the Zayats' 2011 Derby runner-up Nehro, who was shown with a blacksmith and Blasi discussing the horse's chronic foot problems. Ahmed Zayat told Daily Racing Form Thursday that he never knew Nehro had foot problems.
David Fiske, racing manager for Winchell Thoroughbreds, told me Thursday that he and owner Ron Winchell had read the story and seen the video but otherwise had no comment. The Winchell family has had a connection to the Asmussen family for decades, including Steve training current Kentucky Derby contender Tapiture and major Oaks contender Untapable.
Daily Racing Form on Friday quoted Fiske as saying no decision had been made whether those horses would remain with Asmussen.
"We'll assess the situation, do what's best for us; not entirely sure what that is at the moment," Fiske said. "The video and the story don't reflect the experiences we've had with Steve and Scott over the last 20 years that we've had horses with them."
On Thursday, I went frame by frame through the video — designed to shock, including with all of Blasi's profanities and vulgarities — with prominent Kentucky veterinarian Rick Fischer to get an equine practitioner's view of what we really are seeing. Fischer, who has never worked for Asmussen but is well-acquainted with his veterinarians, cited a long list of distortions and inaccuracies in the video, concluding, "It's so biased, it's beyond belief anybody can watch this and believe this is the way things really are."
Drf:
Scott Blasi, the long-time assistant to trainer Steve Asmussen, has been fired in the wake of a controversy in which both men are accused by an animal rights group of mistreating horses.
"Scott Blasi has been relieved of his responsibilities," Asmussen wrote in a text message Saturday afternoon.
"I have been informed that I have been let go," Blasi confirmed in a text message. "I understand and respect that decision."
Blasi had been based this winter at Fair Grounds, where, through Friday, Asmussen was the leading trainer with 57 wins.
Asmussen and Blasi are the subject of 10 complaints filed by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which had one of its employees go undercover and work as an employee for four months for the Asmussen barn at Churchill Downs and Saratoga.
The complaints include animal abuse in the form of chronic misuse of therapeutic medications as well as the suggested use of electrical devices by jockeys on horses. The complaints also deal with the use of undocumented workers, paying those workers less than minimum wage, and getting those workers to falsify identification documents.
The complaints have sparked investigations by both the New York State Gaming Commission and Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.
In releasing those complaints earlier this week, PETA also released a nine-minute video - edited down from more than seven hours of footage taken - that shows Blasi discussing the use of electrical devices known as batteries. Blasi uses several vulgarities throughout the video including one directed at owner Ahmed Zayat, who he said should have retired 2011 Kentucky Derby runner-up Nehro well before the horse died of colic on Kentucky Derby Day 2013. Nehro had chronic foot problems, and the poor condition of his feet are detailed in the video.
Blasi worked for Asmussen for 18 years, first galloping horses for him at Remington Park. During Blasi's time as Asmussen's top assistant, Asmussen trained two-time Horse of the Year Curlin and Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra and won the Eclipse Award as North America's top trainer in 2008-09.
Asmussen ranks second all-time in wins in North America and fifth in purse earnings. He was a candidate for the Hall of Fame but on Friday was removed from the ballot by National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame officials.
"When you think about Scott being with us for [12] years and what we have accomplished together, it is just tremendous," Asmussen told author Karen M. Johnson in the book "The Training Game" published in 2009.
In the book, Blasi talked about what it was like to work for Asmussen, saying the job regularly required 14-hour days.
"It's not for everybody," Blasi told Johnson. "It's high-pressure. There are so many things we try to manage to make things as smooth as we want it. I first started galloping for Steve at Remington. To see where [the stable] has gone since and everything we've went through to get to this place . . . there is a lot of emotion involved. The fighting and everything you do to get to this point. The hard part is staying on top. Not every day is a great day. Mistakes are made. You try to be as perfect as possible.
"The one thing about working for Steve is that from the outside it seems like so much. A lot of people come up to me and say: 'I don't know how you do it.' When you're in the middle of it, it doesn't seem overwhelming. I personally like the work because I don't do well [with idle time], so it's a good job for me."
In the book, Blasi said beyond the working relationship he had with Asmussen, there is friendship.
"I think everybody has a certain amount of people they chose to confide in," Blasi said. "Steve and I definitely have that kind of relationship. Whether it's business or personal, Steve has been a very good friend to me."
Some creep created a website that posts the name and address of the supposed undercover agent for PETA.
Of course, a whois reveals nothing of the sites creator.
Dangerous business this do gooding.
For those (few) of you who may have wondered if Scott Blasi was related to all around character Freddie Blassie. A few excerpts from Wikipedia. Note - I grew up in L.A. and this guy was a cult hero, probably most famous for using the term \"Pencil Necked Geek.\"
Return to World Wrestling Association
In 1960, Blassie returned to Strongbow\'s promotion in Los Angeles where he was a big star for the World Wrestling Association of southern California, drawing many fans to the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. He was so hated there that uniformed police officers were regularly brought in to protect him as he made his way to and from the ring.[3] He had main event-level feuds against stars such as The Destroyer[4]
On June 12, 1961, Blassie defeated the \"Flying Frenchman\" Édouard Carpentier in a best-of-three-falls match for his first WWA Championship title. On July 7, Blassie successfully defended his title against the former NWA Heavyweight Champion Lou Thesz. During that same title reign, in a match against Lord James Blears a fan threw acid on his back, and he had to return immediately to the locker room to wash it off.
Blassie claims that he made Regis Philbin into the celebrity he is today. When Philbin had a late-night weekend talk show in San Diego, Blassie would routinely show up to yell at the audience, throw furniture, and threaten Philbin. In later years, Blassie also appeared on The Mike Douglas Show when Philbin was a guest host.
After regaining the WWA Championship from Rikidōzan, Blassie lost the title two days later to the \"Masked Destroyer\" Dick Beyer. In 1963, Bearcat Wright defeated him to become champion, and it was quite a statement during the fight for civil rights that an African-American had won such a title. In 1964, \"Dick The Bruiser\" Richard Afflis defeated Blassie to become champion, and Blassie headed east to work for the World Wide Wrestling Federation.
Blassie returned to the WWA in 1968 just as promoter Mike LeBell decided to rejoin the NWA. In the early 1970s, Blassie \"turned face\", or became a good guy, since so many fans were cheering his famous antics. While there, he feuded with Soulman Rocky Johnson, The Sheik, and \"The Golden Greek\" John Tolos. One of his most famous feuds took place in southern California in 1971, against Tolos. The final match of their series took place in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and set new California records for both attendance and gate.
Film career
Blassie appeared in an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show that featured a new dance craze called The Twizzle. Rose Marie\'s character Sally Rogers brought him on at the end of the episode claiming to have discovered another new dance sensation. In the demonstration of the dance Blassie picked up Rob Petrie and twirled him over his head.
Andy Kaufman was enamored with Freddie Blassie and constantly hounded him to get him a spot on the wrestling card. Eventually, a movie of the two was filmed in 1982 at a Sambo\'s in Los Angeles called My Breakfast With Blassie. Kaufman, Blassie, and the film itself were name-checked by American rock band R.E.M. in their song \"Man on the Moon\" from their 1992 album Automatic for the People. The song is a tribute to Kaufman, and makes reference to \"Mr. Fred Blassie in a breakfast mess.\"
Film career
In the early 1990s, the wrestler starred in a documentary directed by Jeff Krulik, titled Mr. Blassie Goes To Washington. In it, Blassie is picked up at the Washington, D.C., airport by a limo full of young women, escorted around the nation\'s capital, gives his opinions and confronts tourists. When meeting someone, he would ask where they were from, and no matter their response, he would reply with, \"Oh, that\'s God\'s country!\"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1LmuCf3aJY
No Freddie Blassie discussion is complete without listening to his recording of \"Pencil Neck Geek\"
Priceless - Thanks TreadHead!
Boscar Obarra Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Some creep created a website that posts the name
> and address of the supposed undercover agent for
> PETA.
>
> Of course, a whois reveals nothing of the sites
> creator.
>
> Dangerous business this do gooding.
You play as dirty as PETA plays, you can\'t expect adherence to Marquis of Queensbury rules.
More than name and address.Picture and character assassination.
google...iron sheik twitter and read away....ps....didn\'t know monday was so bad
must be a law against that. if not, sure should be.
The only one who could give Blassie a run for his money was the great George \'The Animal\' Steele
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kosWhBCq1yo
Interesting thread and good points. I don\'t think anyone assumes ALL trainers and their staff behave this way. I understand the attacks on PETA and respect Moss\' comments. I used to work for Greenpeace and I\'m well acquainted with their attitude and tactics. I\'m not a fan of theirs either.
But here\'s the thing...there have been all kinds of allegations and suspensions, etc. and there are always apologists and rationalizations. Real change is elusive. If you were really nice to Steve and Scott and baked them a cake and sent them a nice card and asked them to stop doing these things would they respond? How many people on this board have wondered over the years how these guys got their results? I hope they get around to taking a long look at Zayat too. Anybody else notice Scott Lake and a few others on his list of trainers? Am I the only one that goes to the track that is tired of this crap?
Just a really entrenched status quo here. The Times is under no obligation to print everyone\'s opinion, and they don\'t have to give voice to people who want to water down their findings. I\'m sure Moss could have found other outlets for her opinions, if any other publications were interested.
As for \"editing tricks,\" what kind of results would they have gotten following Bill Mott or Shug McGaughey? They knew exactly what they were doing and obviously they had intelligence that led them to pick a good target.
HP...Excellent post
Thanks. Believe me I know it sucks that this is going on while horse racing is under siege in so many other ways. But if you have a problem and don\'t fix it, it doesn\'t go away, it gets worse. I really think the solution is to bring criminal charges. Long overdue and will get people in line faster than advances in testing. Testing without real punishment behind it is not enough. One guy goes to jail and you will see a quantum reduction in all of it. The only other thing I can see working is handing out lifetime bans.