![]() In a typical Churchill race, Blasi leads and Lockwood anchors the field as it comes out of the paddock and through the post parade, with Brasseaux positioned on the backstretch. Brasseaux, an outrider for 18 years at other tracks, is in his third meet here. Lockwood, a veteran exercise rider and assistant trainer, took over Blasi’s spot as the other outrider with year-round employment by Churchill. (A fourth outrider, Dorothea Gilliland, works at Trackside training center in the mornings.)īlasi - the husband of trainer Helen Pitts-Blasi and the brother of Scott Blasi, who runs trainer Steve Asmussen’s Churchill division - took over Churchill’s lead outrider spot when John Neal left for Keeneland in 2006. Two outriders are on duty each morning at the Downs during training hours, and all three are at the track in the afternoon on race days. “Even chasing one through the clubhouse.” Churchill vice president John Asher calls the track’s trio of Blasi, 40, Lee Lockwood, 32, and Shawn Brasseaux, 42, “the best in the business.” “They make a hard job look easy,” Churchill racing secretary Ben Huff man said. ![]() Then Blasi and his 11-year-old pony Pete picked up the chase, coming at an angle to where the outrider caught the horse by the reins left-handed on a dead run before it could reach another exit gap. He asked a veteran horsewoman to position her pony just off an opening to the track - known as a “gap” - to discourage the horse from exiting to the backside at high speed. He immediately began instructing exercise riders to turn in the same direction the horse was running - there’s likely less damage if a horse runs into the back of another, rather than head-on - and to move toward the inside of the track. ![]() The riderless horse was heading up the backstretch at full speed against oncoming traffic on the outside of the track.īlasi, Churchill Downs’ lead outrider, was back on his pony after the earlier melee. Not long after Greg Blasi sprinted on foot after a filly who fell over the outer rail, crashed into the box seats and ran underneath the grandstand one morning, the siren sounded the warning of a loose horse on the track. (AP Photo/The Courier-Journal, Michael Clevenger) Outriders Shawn Brasseaux, left, Greg Blasi, center and Lee Lockwood posed for a photo before taking the track at Churchill Downs in Louisville. ![]()
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