The Gossip Girl

Asmussen sits in his tack room at Churchill Downs, tugging on the wool hat he needed when he arrived in the 35° predawn chill. He could offer explanations: The Louisiana horse, a 3--5 favorite sure to be tested postrace, had so much juice in her system that she was almost certainly shot up on race day. What trainer would do that? In Texas, with its zero-tolerance policy on lidocaine, Asmussen's legal team has argued that the amount detected was so small it couldn't have been injected. "They have blood samples in a freezer, but they refuse to test that blood," says Asmussen's lawyer Maggi Moss, also a prominent owner who has 11 horses with Asmussen. "We said, 'Test the blood. If there's lidocaine in there we'll take the six months.' But they wouldn't do it." Of course, explanations can sound like excuses to a public inclined to believe racing is inherently dirty.

"I have 300 [horses], 300 employees, a wife and three children, and I've got a lab in a basement somewhere?" the trainer says, his voice raised. "I've dedicated my life to this sport, and I'm going to risk losing the opportunity to train Curlin and Rachel Alexandra? Are you out of your frickin' mind?"

Asmussen argues that the breadth of his operation not only results in his horses' being tested more than any other trainer's but also leaves him vulnerable to sabotage by jealous opponents, and to veterinary errors. "Some people think they can beat me even though I've been doing this my whole life," he says. "They let you bet on this game, so people feel cheated. I say if you can't beat me, run against somebody else."

Jackson, for his part, has spoken before Congress on the need for a zero-tolerance policy on PEDs in racing, and in 2008 he ordered Asmussen to stop giving Curlin approved steroids. But he has stuck by his trainer. "I believe he has great skill," says Jackson, "and a great love for horses."

Here is what hurts most deeply: "All this talk about me and medication," says Asmussen, "and Rachel gets dragged down because of it. It's wrong beyond belief."

While Jackson and Asmussen deal with complex and challenging issues, Calvin Borel's life is a wonder of simplicity. On a recent morning at Churchill Downs he worked five horses for his brother Cecil, a trainer, then sat sipping coffee in his agent's car. "A little windy today, that's all," Calvin says. "But I love it out here."

Borel has been winning races since not long after he was discovered riding in Cajun bush tracks as a teenager. He has won nearly 4,700 races for more than $105 million in purses, according to Equibase. He has been successful for a long time, but in the last three years he has exploded. First he won the 2007 Kentucky Derby with a ballsy rail-skimming ride on Street Sense. Last spring at Churchill Downs he went low again to win with 50--1 shot Mine That Bird. "This is a hard race to predict," veteran trainer Todd Pletcher told Louisville's Courier-Journal after Mine That Bird's victory, "but I'll tell you one thing—Calvin Borel has it figured out."

He was aboard Rachel Alexandra for her first four wins in 2009. After she was sold he asked Jackson and his wife, Barbara Banke, if he could stay on her (Jackson and Asmussen customarily use Robby Albarado on their best horses), and that wish was granted. "I'm thankful to them for that," he says. "I worked 30 years to ride a horse like her." Borel ranks just 13th in career earnings among jockeys but is the only one to have climbed off a Kentucky Derby winner to ride another horse in the Preakness (and win), and the only one to sit down with David Letterman on CBS's Late Show, which he did before the '09 Belmont.

All of this might have led to mounts in the big races for A-list trainers. It has not for Borel. Though he was back aboard Mine That Bird for the Belmont, Hissam couldn't get him a second mount that day. They went to Saratoga, and Borel's only two victories of the meet came on the day of the Woodward. "We were trying all month," says Hissam. "All those big trainers have their own guys." Borel is viewed by some owners and trainers as a Churchill rider with quirky skills who got the break of a lifetime when Rachel's original trainer, Hal Wiggins, put him on her.

If Borel feels wounded, he hides it well. He has been the right man on the right horse in two of the last three runnings of the biggest race in America. He has sat astride one of the greatest fillies in history. He is engaged to be married. "I love my everyday life," he says. "I love to win a $2,500 race at Churchill. I love to find a good 3-year-old for the big races. I'm lookin' right now."