For four months last year, PETA had an undercover investigator working for highly successful trainer Steve Asmussen – at Churchill Downs and Saratoga Race Course, no less. What follows are some of the investigation’s highlights:
Trainer Scott Blasi, Asmussen’s top lieutenant: “Fuck these horses. These motherfuckers. They’ll fucking break your fucking heart every fucking day, these cocksuckers. There’s always something wrong with ’em.”
“You ought to see these limping motherfuckers I see this son [of] a bitch out here [Saratoga] jogging every day.”
“You could not believe how many [horses] they hurt and kill before they ever even get to the racetrack.”
Farrier working on 5-year-old Nehro, one of Asmussen’s charges: “That’s all missing! His foot is a little bitty nub. …he lost Z-bars on both feet multiple times until he had bloody holes in the bottom of his feet.”
“He doesn’t even have a pulse in this one, and he’s barely got one in the… Stick your thumb in there. Right there in that frog. …No, it’s been like that for three months…it rotted.” Blasi: “…listen…I know the fucker hurts.” Farrier: “Let me show you this hole. This is treacherous. We’ve tried superglue in that hole.”
Blasi, to Nehro: “Quit being such an asshole. …Aggravating son of a bitch.” A few days after this exchange, Nehro died of colic. Blasi: “I have seen a lot of shit. That is the most violent fucking death I have ever seen.”
Track veterinarian James Hunt on Lasix: “It makes them lighter. …it’s a performance enhancer.”
Blasi on “shockwave therapy,” which is used to deaden pain: “It fucking hurts like hell. I can’t believe them fucking sons a bitches can take it.”
Blasi on electric shockers, which are used to “motivate” horses during a race: “I’d tell [jockey Ricardo Santana Jr], ‘You got the maquina [shocker]?’ ‘Boss, I got the maquina.'”
Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens: “So, long story short, I win the race…and I reach over to pull this off, and I, I shock the shit out of myself [audible laughing around the table].”
Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas: “Well, we used to go behind the gate at Ruidoso. And it was just like it was a full-blown orchestra. Zzz. Zzz. Zzz. Zzz. Everybody had one. Everybody had one.”
Blasi, after losing an underperformer – a “rat” – to a claim: “I could just do a fucking cartwheel right now.”
To the New York and Kentucky commissions who have begun investigations, spare us the false outrage. This is the racing you know, and have always known; embarrassment does not equate to caring. The truth is, you and your entire industry are every bit as corrupt as Steve Asmussen and Scott Blasi. To Nehro and the other victims, we are sorry. But know this, we will not rest until this whole vile house of cards comes crumbling down.
Asmussen and his fellow revelers…
