The stretch run at Pimlico probably assured triple play
By GARY WESTStar-Telegram staff writer
THE (BALTIMORE) SUN/GENE SWEENEY JR. VIA MCT
There was no challenge for Big Brown and jockey Kent Desormeaux in the run to the Preakness wire.
Kent Desormeaux might have won the Triple Crown in an unlikely place, the final sixteenth of a mile at Pimlico.
That's where the jockey, with a firm hold of the reins, took Big Brown in hand and downshifted. Saturday's Preakness was already won and the vanquished competition, if it can be called that, already retreating. And so Desormeaux saved a little something for the Belmont Stakes, the finale to sport's most famous triptych.
Since 1978, when Affirmed became the 11th Triple Crown winner, 17 horses have won two-thirds of the series. And 10 of those went to New York with a chance to become the 12th Triple Crown winner, but they all failed.
And some had been as dominant as Big Brown, who won Saturday by 5 1/4 lengths. Smarty Jones won the Preakness by 11 1/2 lengths, but Birdstone finally caught up with him at Belmont Park. Funny Cide won the Preakness by nearly 10 lengths, but he couldn't resist Empire Maker in New York.
With fresh horses joining the fray at every turn, at three distinctly different racetracks, with only two and then three weeks between races, sweeping the Triple Crown series might be one of the most difficult challenges in sports.
Few horses have even hit the Preakness-Belmont double. Since Affirmed, only five horses have won both the Preakness and the Belmont (Risen Star, Hansel, Tabasco Cat, Point Given and Afleet Alex).
But Big Brown has two advantages the others didn't, two things going for him that could make him the most likely horse to win the Triple Crown since Spectacular Bid in 1979: (1) A lack of competition and (2) that final sixteenth of a mile at Pimlico.
Big Brown now has won his five races by a total of 39 lengths. Nobody in the 3-year-old division is even close to him. And his victory Saturday at Pimlico was even more impressive than his win two weeks ago at Churchill Downs in the Kentucky Derby. At Pimlico, he answered every question.
He rated behind Gayego, the early leader. On the backstretch, when Riley Tucker advanced to his outside, Desormeaux momentarily had to check his progress to avoid being trapped in a box. He moved the big colt to the outside, and the race was over. Nothing to it.
Among his rivals, there doesn't seem to be a Birdstone or an Empire Maker. And for certain, in Big Brown's future there's no Easy Goer, who derailed Sunday Silence's Triple Crown bid in 1989.
In the Belmont, he could meet Denis of Cork and Tale of Ekati, who both finished far back in the Kentucky Derby. But the biggest threat to a Big Brown sweep could be Casino Drive, who has raced only twice, winning the Peter Pan Stakes in his American debut.
And that, along with a few very long shots to round out the field, could be it. No horse such as Coastal, Lemon Drop Kid, Victory Gallop or Touch Gold will challenge Big Brown at Belmont.
But that final sixteenth of a mile at Pimlico could be the very thing that enables Big Brown to extend his talent to the 1 1/2 miles of the Belmont. Last year, Curlin got up in the final strides, fully extended, to beat Street Sense in the Preakness, completing the 1 3/16 miles in 1:53.46. Three weeks later, Curlin couldn't quite get by Rags to Riches, Casino Drive's big sister, in the Belmont.
But Big Brown wasn't fully extended. He won the Preakness in 1:54.80 without ever feeling the whip. Nobody threatened him in the stretch; nobody could run with him. Desormeaux called on Big Brown at the top of the Pimlico stretch, the big horse sprinted clear in a blink, and then the jockey took his hold, depositing the balance of Big Brown's energy in the bank, to be withdrawn on June 7 at Belmont Park.
In 1979, on the morning of the Belmont, Spectacular Bid stepped on a pin, according to his trainer, Bud Delp, and that presumably compromised the gray colt's performance when he lost to Coastal. Barring a similar fluke, a pin or a lightning bolt, Big Brown is the most likely Triple Crown winner the sport has seen in many years.
Desormeaux hopes to seal the deal at the Belmont Stakes on June 7.
BALTIMORE - Big Brown had the good fortune to be born in what is considered a lackluster foal crop. Then again, the same thing was said about Seattle Slew. Seattle Slew merely went on to become racing's only unbeaten Triple Crown winner, something Big Brown will try to emulate in the June 7 Belmont Stakes.
If the company Big Brown keeps isn't as memorable as Affirmed's stubborn rival Alydar, that plays in his favor. In his five career starts, the horse that's finished closest to him was a filly - the ill-fated Eight Belles, who was 4-3/4 lengths behind him in the Kentucky Derby. Unlike last year, there weren't any Curlins or Street Senses or Hard Spuns to burn out Big Brown in the first two legs of the Triple Crown, and his trainer Rick Dutrow doesn't see many potential threats among the 3-year-olds he has yet to compete against.
While he delightedly watched Big Brown drag exercise rider Michelle Nevin around his Pimlico shedrow Sunday morning - the colt showing no signs of fatigue after his 5-1/4-length win in Saturday's Preakness - Dutrow showed respect for only a few of his unbeaten horse's peers.
"Todd's horse is running in the Canada race," Dutrow said of Harlem Rocker, the Pletcher trainee who is headed for the Queen's Plate on June 22. "Kiaran McLaughlin has Lieutenant Ron, who looks like he's a really, really nice horse, but he's on the sidelines now (with a bruised foot).
"And this horse that came in from Japan," he said. "Those are the only three horses that I've seen that Big Brown would have to run against to show he's better than them. All the rest of them, I haven't seen anything that's in the same game as those three horses. Nothing."
Only that last horse mentioned by Dutrow, Casino Drive, will add intrigue to Big Brown's attempt to become the 12th Triple Crown winner in thoroughbred racing history. Normally, a horse with two career starts who began his career in Japan and is owned, trained and potentially will be ridden by Japanese connections would be dismissed with several sushi jokes.
Casino Drive, though, is equine royalty. His dam is named Better Than Honour. Two years ago, her son, Jazil (by Seeking the Gold), won the Belmont. Last year, her daughter, Rags to Riches (by A.P. Indy), won the Belmont. On June 7, Casino Drive will try to give his mama her own personal triple.
Sired by Horse of the Year Mineshaft, Casino Drive shipped to New York this spring with the third jewel of the Triple Crown as his target after an 11-1/2-length maiden win in Japan in February. He won the Peter Pan (Grade II) at Belmont on May 10, ridden to a 5-3/4-length victory by Kent Desormeaux, who will be otherwise engaged on Belmont Stakes afternoon. He is the regular pilot of Big Brown.
"I can certainly understand how Jazil and Rags to Riches won the Belmont," Desormeaux said after the Peter Pan. "He's a phenomenal talent, and we've got our hands full with this one."
Casino Drive's camp may be looking for a North American rider for the Belmont, although Yutaka Take, who rode the colt in Japan, currently has the assignment.
"Big Brown was amazing (Saturday), most impressive," said Nobutaka Tada, the managing director of Globe Equine Management Ltd., and the spokesman for owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto and trainer Kazuo Fujisawa. "But the Belmont Stakes is the reason we are here, and Casino Drive loves it here."
Other possibles for the Belmont are Macho Again and Icabad Crane, second and third, respectively, behind Big Brown in the Preakness; Anak Nakal, trained by Nick Zito, who stymied the last Triple Crown bid by Smarty Jones in 2004 with Birdstone; Denis of Cork and Tale of Ekati, third and fourth, respectively, in the Kentucky Derby; and Tomcito, a distant third to Big Brown in the Florida Derby.
Big Brown chasing history
Monday, May 19, 2008
By Phil Janack (Contact)
Gazette Reporter
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Working on only a few hours sleep, Rick Dutrow Jr. sat with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cell phone in the other early Sunday morning.
Leaning on a wooden rail at the Pimlico Race Course stakes barn, next to the blanket of Black-Eyed Susans that Big Brown had earned the night before, Dutrow gazed over at the big bay colt who stuck his head out of stall 34.
I couldnt stay home. As soon as I woke up, I wanted to come out, Dutrow said. Im very excited about whats coming up, and very happy about what we just did.
Everybody wants to see something great. Maybe were going to see that, you know? Itll be a lot of fun.
His resounding victory in the 133rd Preakness, two weeks after thumping the competition in the Kentucky Derby, has put Big Brown on a collision course with history.
On June 7, before what is likely to be a record six-figure crowd at cavernous Belmont Park, Big Brown has the chance to become horse racings 12th Triple Crown winner and first since Affirmed in 1978.
Now 5-0 lifetime, Big Brown can join Seattle Slew as the only
undefeated Triple Crown winners.
Certainly, he can, Dutrow said. If he comes out of this good and trains good, Im not going to see a problem. Were this close to getting it done. Were going to hope that we wind up with a Triple Crown.
Once out of his stall, Big Brown was energetic and playful as reg*ular exercise rider Michelle Nevin
walked him around a deserted shedrow Sunday. Big Brown will spend one more night in Baltimore before leaving for Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankels barn at Belmont Park at 10 this morning.
Look at him, Dutrow said. Wow. I love that. It looks like hes ready.
After overcoming inexperience and the 20 post to win the Derby, Big Brown faced a new set of questions in the Preakness. The 14-day turnaround was the quickest of his career. Rather than being on the outside, where he also won the Florida Derby March 29, Big Brown broke from the middle of 12 horses, and in the early stages of the race, found himself briefly pinned in on the rail by long shot Riley Tucker.
Jockey Kent Desormeaux had enough time and room to steer Big Brown clear, powering to the lead at the top of the stretch and sprinting clear, hitting the wire
51⁄4 lengths in front.
Yesterday, we saw a new part of him, Dutrow said. He was down on the inside, there was a horse in front of him and a horse on the outside of him. I think it was the toughest scenario that hes been in. It could have got ugly there. This horse is going to adapt to anything, man.
The next task is the 11⁄2-mile Belmont, the last and longest leg of the Triple Crown. There could be as many as eight rivals waiting for Big Brown in New York, none with more buzz than Kentucky-bred Japanese import Casino Drive, an impressive winner of the Grade II Peter Pan May 10.
The Belmont would be the third career race for Casino Drive, who broke his maiden Feb. 23 in Japan.
Hes got a lot of talent. They think they have a really, really nice horse, which they do, and theyre going after the gut, right now. Wed probably be doing the same thing, Dutrow said. Id like to have the horse, but I dont see him beating Big Brown. I just dont see that.
Of the current 3-year-old crop, Dutrow feels Casino Drive, unbeaten Harlem Rocker and Lieutenant Ron may be the only ones to give Big Brown a challenge. Harlem Rocker, trained by Todd Pletcher, is skipping the Belmont for Canadas Triple Crown series, and Lieutenant Ron, 2-for-2 with a pair of sprint wins for trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, had a foot injury that kept him out of the Peter Pan.
Those are the only three horses that Ive seen that Big Brown would have to run against to show that hes better than them, Dutrow said. All the rest of them, I havent seen anything thats in the same game as those three horses. Nothing. And I dont really want to.
Also eyeing the Belmont are graded-stakes winners Denis of Cork, Anak Nakal and Tale of Ekati, who ran third, fourth and seventh, respectively, in the Derby; Group 1 winner Tomcito, seventh in the
Peter Pan; and New York-bred Icabad Crane, third in the Preakness.
Pletcher trains both Behindatthebar, knocked from the Preakness with a foot bruise, and Readys Echo, third in the Peter Pan, and hasnt ruled them out of the Belmont. Roman Emperor, winner of the Barbaro on the Preakness
undercard who ran in all four of New Yorks Triple Crown prep races, is another possibility.
New York Racing Association president and CEO Charlie Hayward feels New Yorkers will come out in full force to support one of their own in Big Brown. The biggest Belmont crowd was 120,139 for Smarty Jones Triple Crown bid in 2004.
We could probably set a rec*ord, Hayward said. This horse is pretty special. Were thrilled. Its very exciting.
Earlier in the week, Dutrow expressed a desire to let Big Brown finish out his 3-year-old season rather than go straight to the breeding shed. A reported $50 million deal to stand at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky., was announced on Preakness day.
On Sunday, Dutrow repeated a desire to keep Big Brown running, including the Grade I Travers, the premiere event of the Saratoga Race Course summer, as well as the Breeders Cup Classic and a date with 2007 Horse of the Year Curlin.
If everything is beautiful with the horse, and the owners still want to race him, I only see the Travers and the Breeders Cup, Dutrow said. I dont know what else anybody would want to do.
Ten horses since Affirmed have lost the Triple Crown in the Belmont, six of them since 1997. With three weeks to recover, Dutrow remains confident that Big Brown can end that streak.
Everybodys going to find out where he belongs. If he wins this next race, hes going to be up there with every great horse thats ever run, he said. When theyre talking about him, hell be in the same breath as Secretariat and Affirmed, and all those great horses. This may be one of the best horses that ever lived.
BALTIMORE - It was like Kent Desormeaux was driving a car and the rest of the jockeys were, well, riding horses. It has been like that every time Big Brown has raced. If Desormeaux puts it on cruise control, the colt idles. If he brakes, the colt slows. And if he hits the accelerator, like he did for perhaps 175 yards in Saturday's Preakness at Pimlico, the response is instantaneous and a bit awe inspiring.
Horses are not machines. At least, they are not supposed to be. The late track announcer Chic Anderson described Secretariat as "this tremendous machine" as the legendary colt opened up a 20-length lead turning for home in the 1973 Belmont Stakes on the way to the first Triple Crown in 25 years. Nobody argued with Anderson's description. At this moment, after five races and five wins by a combined 39 lengths, 7.8 lengths per race, machine seems like the only appropriate description for Big Brown, a Belmont Stakes victory away from being the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years.
Big Brown did not beat the average in the Preakness, but that really wasn't the point. When the field reached the far turn, two horses were just in front and to the inside of Big Brown. Desormeaux looked under his right arm to see if anything was moving behind him. That was the signal the rider knew the horses in front of him were no threat.
At the instant Big Brown's body was straight in the stretch, the rider moved his hands forward and gave the signal. In maybe 10 strides, Big Brown went from even to 5 lengths in front. You can watch thousands of horse races and never see a horse separate so fast and so far in such little time.
"I kissed at him," Desormeaux said. "I tapped him on the shoulder. He just took off. He's got some turn of foot."
It is about 350 yards from the top of the Pimlico stretch to the finish line. The rider let off the accelerator more than 100 yards from the finish line. The second, third and fourth horses, straining on every stride, were separated by barely more than 1 length. The second horse, Macho Again, owned by Terry Finley's West Point Thoroughbreds, based in Mt. Laurel, ran the race of his life. And was separated from Big Brown by 5 1/4 lengths.
The big colt has raced against 54 horses in five races and beaten them all soundly, 39 lengths of air between them. In his last three races, all Grade I stakes, he won from the 12 post in the Florida Derby, which was supposed to be impossible; the 20 post in the Kentucky Derby, which was equally impossible; and now the Preakness with complete ease, proving that, with Big Brown, impossible may not apply.
"I'm thankful that I've been blessed with these beautiful people and freak of a horse," Desormeaux said. "It was just the easiest win ever."
So on to Belmont Park, where Big Brown will train for the June 7 Belmont Stakes. The colts that finished third and fourth in the Derby, Denis of Cork and Tale of Ekati, will be there after passing up the Preakness. Casino Drive, the Japanese owned and trained colt so impressive in winning the May 10 Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont, will be there. Big Brown will most definitely be there.
The colt's trainer, Rick Dutrow, so confident in Kentucky and, by post time, equally confident at Pimlico, did not sound concerned by any horse or any scenario.
When asked about the Belmont exacta, Desormeaux, who rode Casino Drive in the Peter Pan, said it was a cold exacta.
Cold or boxed?
"I don't know," Desormeaux said.
Dutrow did not equivocate.
"It's cold, babe," he said before starting to laugh.
Back at the stakes barn, Dutrow just kept laughing. And why not? He trains a machine in a sport where even the very best horses rarely hold their form for long. To this point, Big Brown seems to be the exception to all the horse racing rules.
"I was not surprised that he won so easy because I know we have a good horse, and I know he was running a race where they didn't have good horses running," said Dutrow, who was not lying on either count.
Casino Drive?
"Well, I would like to have him, number one," Dutrow said. "He looks like a nice horse. Number two, I believe that he can't beat our horse. So all Japanese people are going to think when they come here that they thought Godzilla was dead. They're going to find out he's not dead, he's here."
Politically incorrect all the way to end, Dutrow offended a state when he basically said the Derby looked like just any other race to him. Now he's after a country. With Big Brown in the barn, it sort of releases your inhibitions, not that Dutrow has ever had any.
Since Affirmed last won the Triple Crown in 1978, 10 horses have gone to Belmont Park with a chance. Eleven horses have won the Triple Crown. Maybe the stars and the numbers are aligned this time.
We all know what we have seen this spring, but the sport makes you cautious. Certainly, Smarty Jones looked like a cinch 4 years ago. In this game, nothing is ever certain.
What we do know is that we should savor Big Brown. He will be gone to Three Chimneys Farm by the end of the year, joining Smarty and Dynaformer, Barbaro's sire. A stud deal, with an estimated value of $50 million, was announced an hour before the Preakness.
Big Brown ran the mile and three-sixteenths in 1:54.80, which equated to a Beyer speed figure of 100, several lengths slower than his Derby win.
The players at Pimlico bet $5.3 million to win on 1-5 Big Brown. So much was bet on him to win that he actually paid more to place ($2.60) than he did to win ($2.40).
The two horses in front of Big Brown to the top of the stretch, Riley Tucker and Gayego, finished last and next-to-last, respectively. This is not a coincidence. Big Brown does not just beat horses. The horses that dare hang near him early get run right to the back of the pack.
There was a very interesting race within the race. Earlier this year, Edgar Prado thought he had been promised the mount on Big Brown. Promises in horse racing are like promises in politics. Desormeaux got the mount.
So there was Prado riding Riley Tucker like the race was 6 furlongs, asking his colt early to rush out of the gate, pushing him ahead of Big Brown coming out of the first turn when it looked like Desormeaux was going to have clear sailing. That was Riley Tucker who came up outside Big Brown with Gayego just in front of the Derby winner.
For an instant, Big Brown was trapped. So Desormeaux tapped on the brakes, let Riley Tucker pass by and then swung Big Brown to the middle of the track for the long run down the backstretch. From there, it was a question of how, when, and by how many.
"Going down the backside when Kent got him out and he was laying third on the outside, I knew it was over," Dutrow said.
Casino Drive is going to need a new rider for the Belmont Stakes. Word is that it will most likely be an American-based jockey. The most likely candidate is a man with incentive - Edgar Prado.
Big Brown will be just the fourth horse to hit the Belmont Stakes without a loss. Only Seattle Slew (1977) made it through. Majestic Prince (1969) and Smarty finished second.
"It looks like Big Brown might win the Belmont farther than Secretariat," said Patrick Gallagher, trainer of 10th place finisher Yankee Bravo.
That would be 31 lengths. That is not likely. Just about anything else, however, is clearly possible. *
Tale of Ekati, fourth in the Kentucky Derby, is still under consideration for the Belmont Stakes, Smullen said, though he is also nominated to the Ohio Derby on May 31. He was scheduled to have his first breeze since the Derby on Tuesday.
Plans also have been made for a couple of the stable's other 3-year-olds. Big Truck, 18th in the Kentucky Derby, is being pointed to the Grade 3, $100,000 Hill Prince Stakes on the turf here June 6. Big Truck worked four furlongs in 49.53 seconds Monday morning on the dirt, but is scheduled to have his next two breezes on the grass, Smullen said.
Groomedforvictory, a New York-bred son of Victory Gallop, is being pointed to the Grade 2, $250,000 Woody Stephens at seven furlongs on Belmont Day. Groomedforvictory has won his last two starts, including the Screenland Stakes for New York-breds in which he ran 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:16.95 and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 97.
"It might be asking a little much of him, but he hasn't done anything wrong," Smullen said.
On Sunday, Groomedforvictory worked four furlongs in 47.64 over Belmont's main track.
Jockey Switch on Denis of Cork; Works at CD. Denis of Cork was ridden by Calvin Borel in the Kentucky Derby, but jockey Robby Albarado will have the mount in the Belmont Stakes.
Denis of Cork, third to Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands and winner of the Grade III Southwest Stakes, turned in a five-furlong breeze today at Churchill Downs. It was his first workout since the Derby. 'Denis' went five in 1:01 (5/31).
Hes just starting to come back to himself, said Carroll. He finished up strong in the Derby and galloped out. With all the rain weve had here, I didnt do a whole lot with him since the Derby--you dont have to do a whole lot with him. Today we just let him stretch his legs, and he just went beautiful.
The colt is expected to breeze twice more before he travels to Belmont Park in an effort to derail Big Browns bid to become the twelfth horse to sweep the Triple Crown.
Its good to get his head back in the game, Carroll said. Well see what happens in the Belmont. Big Brown is just a beautiful horse--a fantastic horse. But it wouldnt hurt me to see him get beat. Casino Drive will be the second choice, but after that I dont know. We fit well in that race with him.
Denis of Cork won his first three starts, including the Southwest on Feb. 18, but turned in a poor effort in a fifth-place finish in the Grade II Illinois Derby on April 5. Carrolls colt rebounded in the Kentucky Derby, where he was last in the field of 20 in the early going and trailed the leaders by 19 lengths. He rallied in the stretch to finish 8 1/2 lengths behind Big Brown.
Big Brown Leaves for New York. Nearly 40 hours after Big Brown's win in the Preakness Stakes, the dual classic winner left the Pimlico stakes barn and headed to New York. The son of Boundary will attempt to become the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years in the Belmont Stakes on June 7.
I am feeling pretty confident about things, trainer Rick Dutrow said. I can see that he is sharp. Yesterday he was bouncing, and today the same thing. He is doing good and that makes everything so much easier.
Big Brown, who has won all of his five career races by a combined 39 lengths, is only the fourth horse to emerge from the Kentucky Derby and Preakness undefeated, joining Majestic Prince (1969), Seattle Slew (1977) and Smarty Jones (2004). Seattle Slew is the only horse in history to emerge undefeated from the Belmont Stakes and a Triple Crown sweep.
I havent seen anybody that has made him run yet, said Dutrow. I have to believe that this race the other day was just an absolute super free race for the Belmont. He wasnt under any pressure at any time in the race. It looks like the jock asked him for run for maybe a sixteenth of a mile just to separate him from the field to put the race away. After that point he just glided to the wire. We were really hoping for a race like that and we got it. We cant complain about anything.
Thirty-one other horses have left Pimlico with a chance at the Triple Crown, including six since 1997, with 11 finishing what is probably the most elusive prize in sports. Dutrow is confident his star can join elite company.
Everyone can see he is a special kind of horse, Dutrow said. As long as we can keep him well within himself, well have a chance. Everybody is very excited about him, and how can you not be. It looks like he has a chance at being one of the best ever. If we get beat in the Belmont, we are just going to be amongst a whole lot of horses that almost got there, so we need to win this race. He looks like by far that he is the best horse going into the race.
After walking the shedrow at 8:00 this morning, the colt boarded a Brook Ledge van without incident and exited the Pimlico backstretch two hours later, headed for the Big Apple.
I havent been in New York for like three or four months, joked Dutrow, who is based at Aqueduct. I have like eight dinner reservations tonight. Whoever makes me the best offer is where Ill go.
Big Brown hype triples heading into Belmont
Click-2-Listen
By HAL HABIB
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 18, 2008
BALTIMORE It's 14 hours after Big Brown's glorified workout that wasn't much of a workout, and he's wondering what the fuss is about. Perhaps 20 reporters have gathered to chat with trainer Rick Dutrow, but the real star of the show wants his say, too.
Big Brown cannot talk - news flash: there is something this horse cannot do - but he sends unmistakable signals. Ears perked up.
Eyes glistening a lot. Coat glistening even more. Being as sharp as he is, Big Brown probably gets just as big a laugh as Dutrow over the question of how the horse is doing Sunday, the morning after winning the Preakness.
"Well ...," Dutrow says with a sweeping gesture toward the nearby stall where, by merely poking his head out, Big Brown emphatically answers the question.
"He seems a bit cheeky this morning," his exercise rider, Michelle Nevin, later adds while taking Big Brown for a walk around Pimlico's stakes barn.
The most important message is as clear as Big Brown's eyes. When the Belmont Stakes rolls around June 7, there is every reason to believe horse racing will have its 12th Triple Crown champion and first since Affirmed in 1978.
Forget the 11/2-mile distance. Forget three races in five weeks. Just don't forget to program the TiVo.
"Everybody's going to find out where he belongs," Dutrow says of Big Brown's place in history. "If he wins this next race, he'll be with any good horse that's ever run. That's when they'll be talking about him. He'll be in the same breath as Secretariat, Affirmed, all those good ones."
And make no mistake, Dutrow fully expects that to happen. He once said he was going to wait until after the Belmont to throw a party in New York, where he lives. Dutrow now says he's starting to put the bash together today.
"As long as the horse is OK, nothin' else matters," Dutrow says.
In Dutrow's eyes, that includes Japan's Casino Drive, who some believe might give Big Brown the first legit test of his career. Although the next three weeks will hype that matchup, Dutrow is even allowing himself to peek beyond Casino Drive, to what should be the best and most competitive race Big Brown will have.
Assuming both horses stay the course, the Breeders' Cup Classic would feature a fresh Triple Crown winner vs. the reigning horse of the year, Curlin, who captured the Preakness in 2007.
"That'd be one big race," Dutrow says. "Everybody would love to see that.
"It'd be exciting."
It also would almost certainly be the last time anyone sees Big Brown compete, since principal owner Michael Iavarone signed a stud agreement with Three Chimneys Farm on Saturday. In between the Belmont and the Breeders', Dutrow expects Big Brown's only other race to be the Travers at Saratoga.
But first comes the Belmont, which tentatively is also expecting Anak Nakal, Denis of Cork, Tale of Ekati and Tomcito. Casino Drive impressed by winning the Peter Pan Stakes on May 10 at Belmont to remain undefeated, but Dutrow expects Casino Drive to regress like many other horses in their second races after shipping from overseas.
"I hope he gets sick or something like that," Dutrow says. "I don't want to run against anything that can run. It's not going to help us win."
But at the same time, Dutrow says he believes Casino Drive gave maximum effort in the Peter Pan, whereas Big Brown exerted almost no effort against an overmatched field in the Preakness. Dutrow has an important corroborating witness - Kent Desormeaux rode Casino Drive that day but will be back atop Big Brown in the Belmont.
Casino Drive also will try to become the first horse to win the Belmont in his third career start since Prince Eugene in 1913. Algerine, in 1876, was the only other such winner. But Casino Drive is a half-brother to the past two Belmont winners, Jazil and Rags to Riches, so his breeding indicates he can handle the distance.
Big Brown, on the other hand, will try to clear a hurdle that proved too much for 18 others seeking a Triple Crown, most recently Smarty Jones in 2004. Ironically, Dutrow asked his friend, trainer Bobby Frankel, if Big Brown could use the former Belmont stall of Empire Maker, who in '03 spoiled Funny Cide's Triple Crown bid. Frankel said OK. If Empire Maker's karma rubs off, Big Brown, a lifetime 5-0, would join Seattle Slew (1977) as the only undefeated Triple Crown winners.
"I'm a very lucky guy to be around this horse," Dutrow says. "It just comes around once in a lifetime where you can win a Triple Crown. ... That has to be the most exciting thing that a horseman could want."
It's pretty good for a trainer. Pretty good for a horse, too, as Big Brown shows while strutting alongside Nevin.
"He's very proud of himself," Dutrow says. "You see how he is when you guys are all here. He loves to meet new people."
In New York, 100,000 could show for a race. For a coronation.
"Everybody wants to see something great," Dutrow says.
NEW YORK -- Paul Pompa Jr. glanced at his laptop screen Wednesday morning, eagerly checking if the e-mail he was waiting for had appeared. "Not here yet," he said. In most ways, this day was like any other for the owner of horse racing's star of the moment. Pompa woke up at his home in Warren, N.J., at 4:30 a.m. and arrived at his office in Brooklyn by 6:30. He ensured the trucks left the yard on time, then settled behind his desk, one room over from his brother Tom and his cousin Pete.
Pompa owns Truck-Rite Corp., the business he took over from his father then built from a small, family operation into one of the largest trucking companies in the city. Truck-Rite employs roughly 200 workers, and Pompa can match a name with every face. Pompa's presence in the office ceased being necessary for his own financial well-being long ago, but he works every day, anyway. "What else am I going to do?" he said.
Wednesday, though, was different, more urgent and more exciting. Five minutes had passed, and he spun around in his chair and refreshed his e-mail again. "Oh," he said. "Here it is." Confirmation had arrived.
"You're here when history is being made," Pompa told a visitor. "We're selling the breeding rights to Big Brown."
Pompa, 49, is a common man within stunningly close reach to one of sport's most uncommon feats. He bought a horse for $190,000 at a 2-year-old-in-training sale at Keeneland in April 2007, shortly after he had renewed Truck-Rite's lucrative contract with United Parcel Service. To celebrate, and to give a nod to the drivers of UPS trucks, Pompa named the horse Big Brown. That horse won the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago, and he may become the first since 1978 to win the Triple Crown, the second leg of which will run Saturday at the Preakness Stakes.
Pompa owns just 25 percent of Big Brown now, since he sold the majority of him to International Equine Acquisitions Holdings for about $3 million after Big Brown's maiden race in September. But Pompa, some eight years after he jumped into horse racing, has forged a unique place at the sport's apex, a blue-collar New Yorker without pretense in an industry loaded with it.
"I hope to be thought of as different, yeah," Pompa said, a thin smile spreading on his face. And he is. Trainer Patrick Reynolds met Pompa in 2002, when they ate lunch in Pompa's Truck-Rite office. Reynolds, who like Pompa was born in New York, drew an immediate contrast between Pompa and the other owners he knows.
Pompa wears modest clothing and no gaudy jewelry. He and his wife, Lisa, have two sons -- the eldest will be graduating from college this year; the youngest will be graduating from high school. Pompa speaks directly and honestly. He brings his cousin Jerry, a longtime handicapper, with him, because Pompa relies on him for advice. Reynolds has seen owners bluster their way into -- and quickly out of -- the horse racing game.
"In this day and age, it's a daily hustle; it's a war," said Reynolds, who trained Big Brown before the sale to IEAH. "If the game had more owners like him, it would be a whole lot easier to negotiate. He takes care of the people around him. He's the best owner that I've had."
Pompa entered horse racing in 2000 because, he said: "I needed an outlet. I needed some action." He's received all he wants in the past year, ever since Big Brown won his first race by 11 3/4 lengths, a staggering margin. He took 26 family members and friends with him to the Kentucky Derby, paying the expenses for them all.
"It's fun to be me right now," Pompa said.
The week after his victory, though, he was back at his second-floor office, the one that overlooks the East River. He brought with him a stack of victory photographs from the Derby, but nothing else had changed. He didn't need to be there, and yet he was.
"He could walk away and live a nice life," Tom Pompa said. "There's a concern for the 200 employees."
Said Pompa: "It means something when they see the boss of the company -- a Kentucky Derby-winning owner -- here at 6:30 in the morning."
By 2000, his trucking business had begun to nearly run itself, more successful than his father ever could have imagined. Paul Pompa Sr. was the first one in his family born in the United States rather than Italy. He worked on an assembly line at Curtis-Wright Aeronautical until 1966.
"He said, '[Forget] this, I'm starting my own business,' " Pompa said.
He bought a couple trucks and a building in Manhattan. He and his brother drove and delivered freight themselves, and Paul Sr. swelled the business enough that he could send the oldest of his four children off to Kings College in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Paul Jr. graduated from Kings in 1980 and returned home unsure of what would come next. He had been a journalism and government double major; maybe, he figured, he would become a senator. In the meantime, he went to work for his father, who asked him, "What the hell did I send you to college for if you want to do this?"
But Pompa's education had allowed him to see more potential in Truck-Rite than his father ever had. He struck deals with paper companies springing up around New York and doubled Truck-Rite's revenue in eight months. Paul Sr. had always squeaked by on his street smarts, and his son's education offered a perfect balance.
"You always use the textbook method," his father would tell him.
In 1982, his father named him company president at age 24. Father and son moved their business from Manhattan to the Greenpoint area of Brooklyn, where Pompa's 85 trucks now occupy eight acres. In 1980, the company made $500,000. Last year, Truck-Rite grossed $20 million.
It was not always smooth. Pompa's two largest accounts declared bankruptcy in 1990, and production dwindled. His workforce was too large for the amount of work required. Pompa didn't lay off a single driver. He and Pete Durante, his cousin and partner, would wait until 3 a.m. some nights to make sure all the truckers arrived back in Greenpoint safely.
"We could have been doing a lot better off if we had" fired people, Durante said. "We could have cut a bunch of people. Paul is the most patient person I've ever met in my life."
The partnership with UPS came in 1994, and Pompa never worried about employing too many drivers again. Paul Sr. and Paul Jr. worked in the same office together until November 2000, when Paul Sr. suffered a heart attack and died. Paul Sr.'s desk remains untouched in tribute, its contents as they were when he passed away: black, plastic shelves holding paperwork; a toy model of a Mack truck; a thick, multicolored glass dish; two pens jutting up from a gold nameplate that reads "Paul Pompa Sr."
Before he died, Paul Pompa Sr. watched horses his son owned win three races. The first horse Pompa bought, a filly, gave Pompa his first victory. He named her Textbook Method.
Pompa owns roughly 20 horses aside from Big Brown, including one who doesn't race anymore. He once sent a horse to a farm, and a disabled girl who lived there became attached to it. The farm's owner wrote Pompa a four-page letter detailing how much the girl had fallen in love with the horse, how she saw courage in it and how it had helped her healing. Pompa told the farm's owner to keep the horse.
"We're only here for a short time. If you don't help other people, what good are you?" Pompa said. "I made more money in my life than I ever thought I was going to make. If you don't do right by other people, then what good are ya?"
He paused.
"I'm not trying to be a philosopher. I'm just trying to give you the way I feel about life. I try to treat people the way I want to be treated, and I think I've been rewarded for that. If I gave you a story or two or three, it would be bragging. I don't want to come off as a braggart. But you know, I've helped a lot of people in my life. I view this run that I'm on right now as, maybe, sort of payback
Finley: Macho Again to Try Belmont
by Deirdre B. Biles
Updated: May 20, 2008
West Point Thoroughbreds Macho Again, winner of the Derby Trial and second to Big Brown in the Preakness (gr. I), will be pointed for the Belmont Stakes (gr. I), according to West Point founder and president Terry Finley.
It (the Belmont) looks like kind of the same deal as the Preakness, said Finley May 19 while attending the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic preferred sale of 2-year-olds in training in Maryland. Its a decent group of horses, but nobody really stands out except Big Brown. I know Casino Drive ran well in the Peter Pan (gr. II), but I think we ran pretty well in the Derby Trial and we ran OK in the Preakness. It (the Belmont purse) is a million dollars, so were going to roll the dice again.
A son of Macho Uno, Macho Again has captured three of his nine career races and has finished second three times while being trained by Dallas Stewart. The gray or roan colt has earned $343,761.
We cant beat Big Brown without something going wrong -- his feet or he has terrible racing luck, Finley said. Were going there with the intention of running well and hitting the board. Some people would say, Why would you run in a race where you dont have shot? But things can happen.
Tale of Ekati worked at Saratoga yesterday, breezing four furlongs on the training track in :49.80 (6/21).
BIG BROWN
May 19, 2008
Nearly 40 hours after Big Brown's win in the Preakness Stakes, the dual classic winner left the Pimlico stakes barn and headed to New York. The son of Boundary will attempt to become the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years in the Belmont Stakes on June 7.
I am feeling pretty confident about things, trainer Rick Dutrow said. I can see that he is sharp. Yesterday he was bouncing, and today the same thing. He is doing good and that makes everything so much easier.
Big Brown, who has won all of his five career races by a combined 39 lengths, is only the fourth horse to emerge from the Kentucky Derby and Preakness undefeated, joining Majestic Prince (1969), Seattle Slew (1977) and Smarty Jones (2004). Seattle Slew is the only horse in history to emerge undefeated from the Belmont Stakes and a Triple Crown sweep.
I havent seen anybody that has made him run yet, said Dutrow. I have to believe that this race the other day was just an absolute super free race for the Belmont. He wasnt under any pressure at any time in the race. It looks like the jock asked him for run for maybe a sixteenth of a mile just to separate him from the field to put the race away. After that point he just glided to the wire. We were really hoping for a race like that and we got it. We cant complain about anything.
Thirty-one other horses have left Pimlico with a chance at the Triple Crown, including six since 1997, with 11 finishing what is probably the most elusive prize in sports. Dutrow is confident his star can join elite company.
Everyone can see he is a special kind of horse, Dutrow said. As long as we can keep him well within himself, well have a chance. Everybody is very excited about him, and how can you not be. It looks like he has a chance at being one of the best ever. If we get beat in the Belmont, we are just going to be amongst a whole lot of horses that almost got there, so we need to win this race. He looks like by far that he is the best horse going into the race.
After walking the shedrow at 8:00 this morning, the colt boarded a Brook Ledge van without incident and exited the Pimlico backstretch two hours later, headed for the Big Apple.
CASINO DRIVE
May 21, 2008
Nobutaka Tada, managing director of Globe Equine Management Ltd. told Tim Wilkin of the Albany Times Union that the logical choice to ride Casino Drive in the Belmont Stakes would be Yutaka Take, a leading rider in Japan. However, a decision hasn't been made yet.
Take rode Casino Drive in his first and only start in Japan, a $125,000 maiden special weight on Feb. 23. Casino Drive won that race by 11 1/2 lengths.
Casino Drive, a Kentucky-bred bought for $950,000 at Keeneland's September 2006 Yearling Sale, spent his days in Japan before being brought here on May 1 to be readied for the Belmont Stakes. Kent Desormeaux, Big Brown's rider, was on Casino Drive when he won the Grade II Peter Pan on May 10.
The Peter Pan was only the second start for Casino Drive. Still, he's expected to be the second choice in the wagering for the Belmont Stakes.
DENIS OF CORK
May 19, 2008
Denis of Cork was ridden by Calvin Borel in the Kentucky Derby, but jockey Robby Albarado will have the mount in the Belmont Stakes.
Denis of Cork, third to Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands and winner of the Grade III Southwest Stakes, turned in a five-furlong breeze today at Churchill Downs. It was his first workout since the Derby. 'Denis' went five in 1:01 (5/31).
Hes just starting to come back to himself, said Carroll. He finished up strong in the Derby and galloped out. With all the rain weve had here, I didnt do a whole lot with him since the Derby--you dont have to do a whole lot with him. Today we just let him stretch his legs, and he just went beautiful.
The colt is expected to breeze twice more before he travels to Belmont Park in an effort to derail Big Browns bid to become the twelfth horse to sweep the Triple Crown.
Its good to get his head back in the game, Carroll said. Well see what happens in the Belmont. Big Brown is just a beautiful horse--a fantastic horse. But it wouldnt hurt me to see him get beat. Casino Drive will be the second choice, but after that I dont know. We fit well in that race with him.
Denis of Cork won his first three starts, including the Southwest on Feb. 18, but turned in a poor effort in a fifth-place finish in the Grade II Illinois Derby on April 5. Carrolls colt rebounded in the Kentucky Derby, where he was last in the field of 20 in the early going and trailed the leaders by 19 lengths. He rallied in the stretch to finish 8 1/2 lengths behind Big Brown.
MACHO AGAIN
May 21, 2008
Macho Again, second in the Preakness, is being pointed to the Belmont Stakes.
We cant beat Big Brown without something going wrong -- his feet or he has terrible racing luck, West Point Thoroughbreds' Terry Finley said. Were going there with the intention of running well and hitting the board. Some people would say, Why would you run in a race where you dont have shot? But things can happen.
TALE OF EKATI
May 21, 2008
Tale of Ekati worked four furlongs in :46.80 (1/37), handily, yesterday at Belmont Park. It was his first workout since finishing fourth in the Kentucky Derby. Exercise rider Kristen Troxell handled the move.
Tale of Ekati is set for work twice more before the Belmont Stakes for trainer Barclay Tagg, who often likes to space workouts six days apart. Such a schedule would put Tale of Ekati on course to have his final workout before the Belmont Stakes six days before the race.
ANAK NAKAL (KY)
Breeder: Buckram Oak Farm
Trainer: Nick Zito
Owner: Four Roses Thoroughbreds
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Victory Gallop (Cryptoclearance, Victorious Lil (CAN))
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Misk (Quiet American, Perlee (FR))
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 5-7-8-0-0 (20) 4.00
Foal Date: 4-23-05
Performance at Age Three
Feb. 24, Grade II Fountain of Youth Stakes, Gulfstream Park, 1 1/8 Mile.
Memo, Please Note: Posted March 25, 2008
For the second time after the running of the Fountain of Youth, the final and fractional times were revised. Today, Gulfstream said that upon review, the official final time for the 1 1/8-mile race will now be listed as 1:50.07. The initial winning time, on the tote board and in charts, was 1:51.85. A revision to the chart made yesterday called the race in 1:49.53.
Anak Nakal (10-1) had no front pace to run at, and he needs that. He finished eighth, beaten 16 lengths by Cool Coal Man (7-1), after running twelfth or eleventh of 12 for six furlongs.
"With the slow pace, (Anak Nakal) really had no chance. He needs pace up front."--Nick Zito
March 15, Grade II Rebel Stakes, Oaklawn Park, 1 1/16 Mile. Anak Nakal (7-1) again disappointed, finishing seventh after running sixth and fifth much of the race.
April 5, Grade I Wood Memorial, Aqueduct, 1 1/8 Mile. Anak Nakal woke up a little bit in this race. He finished fifth, beaten 4 1/2 lengths. He made up some ground going five wide on the second turn, then ran evenly down the stretch.
May 3, Grade I Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, 1 1/4 Mile. Anak Nakal finished seventh, beaten 17 1/2 lengths by Big Brown. Although he was demolished by the winner, Anak Nakal certainly outran his 53-1 odds and thus may have shown further improvement as his 3-year-old campaign continued.
On May 18, ANAK NAKAL breezed four on the training track in :49.80 (6/21) at SAR.
Performance at Age Two
Anak Nakal broke his maiden first time out going seven furlongs at Belmont Park on Sept. 28, timed in 1:23.25. He won by a length after closing from eighth and altering his course in the stretch.
Oct. 28, Grade III Nashua Stakes, Aqueduct, One Mile. Under Julien Leparoux, Anak Nakal had a runner-up effort to the then very strong Etched. On good dirt, Anak Nakal was beaten 6 1/2 lengths to a time of 1:36.96 going one turn.
Nov. 24, Grade II Kentucky Jockey Club, Churchill Downs, 1 1/16 Mile. Stretched out to two turns for the first time, Anak Nakal (8-1) won the race by a half-length over a closing Blackberry Road. He was timed in 1:43.16 under Julien Leparoux.
Anak Nakal settled in the middle of the pack out of the starting gate as favored Halo Najib, Cool Coal Man and Mythical Pegasus scrambled for the early lead. That trio took the field through fractions of :23.72, :46.94 and 1:11.56. The winner sat fourth, in the clear, behind that trio after a half-mile, while Racecar Rhapsody and Blackberry Road trailed the field.
Anak Nakal passed the tiring leaders inside the final eighth of a mile while Blackberry Road, who rallied stongly from more than a dozen lengths off the lead under Calvin Borel, closed to his inside and Racecar Rhapsody closed five-wide. The winner held off the late runners.
This is a nice horse. He has only had two races and that horse of Darleys (Etched) that won the Nashua, he was a good second to him. This race, the progression was perfect. This horse ran seven-eighths, a mile and now a mile and a sixteenth.... He looks like he will go a distance of ground. I was really impressed when the horse...came up the inside, and my horse...saw him and he took off again....
"When you win a race like this, you just want to have your eyes on the Derby.... He will go to Palm Meadows.--Nick Zito
He is a long-striding horse, and thats why I was kind of asking him (leaving the backstretch), because he does not have much of a kick but he just keeps on going. He is kind of a grinder. The pace in front of me was ideal and the race set up perfect for me.--Julien Leparoux
Photo by Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club BIG BROWN (KY)
Breeder: Monticule
Trainer: Rick Dutrow
Owner: IEAH Stable and Paul Pompa
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Boundary (Danzig, Edge)
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Mien (Nureyev, Miasma)
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 4-7-23-2-0 (36) 1.67
Foal Date: 4-10-05
A $190,000 Keeneland April 2007 purchase.
Performance at Age Three
March 5, Entry-Level Allowance, Gulfstream Park, One Mile. Big Brown powered his way to a probable start in the Grade I Florida Derby after winning an off-the-turf allowance race by 12 3/4 lengths. Big Brown stayed well out from the rail and still came home in the one-turn mile race in 1:35.66 under Kent Desormeaux. He was never more than a length off the lead. Initial fractions were :45.31 and 1:09.87.
I was worried all last night, because hes had two quarter cracks that have been holding him back, said Dutrow. He breezed the other day, and when I watched him work, to me, he just looks like an absolute freak. Talent like he has makes up for a lack of experience. Hes that good.
I knew he was going to do great on the dirt because I breezed him with Diamond Stripes, and (Big Brown) just carried him around the track."--Rick Dutrow
March 29, Grade I Florida Derby, Gulfstream Park, 1 1/8 Mile. Big Brown overcame the far outside post position 12 and limited experience to emerge a five-length winner. He remained undefeated after just three career starts in a performance that will send him into the Kentucky Derby among the favorites.
Ridden by Kent Desormeaux, Big Brown was sent off the 3-2 favorite. Desormeaux let the big bay colt roll from the far outside in the short run to the first turn, where he was able to take command. Big Brown led at all calls, widening his advantage down the stretch. Fractions were :22:76, :45:83, 1:10:08 and 1:35:18. Final time was 1:48:16
Weve got a Kentucky Derby contender. Its a long way off, and a lot of things have to happen right, but I expected him to run just like what we saw. This day ranks on top of my career. He came out of the gate like we wanted him to. I loved being on the outside. It eliminated our chance of getting in trouble. Going into the race, the only way we cold get beat was if we got in trouble. In the first turn I knew it was over. I knew the horses in here couldnt catch him. All I have to do is stay out of his way. I let him do what he wants.--Winning trainer Rick Dutrow
My plan was not to get on the lead, but rather to get close enough to the rail so as not to get caught wide. Riding him was like bounding through a meadow. He just galloped around. When a horse sets fractions like that and still tells me that hes got more, and that the other horses cant get to him, thats something special. Hes a major talent; possibly the best horse Ive ridden. I thought that after the first time I rode him. Id have to say that hes my (Kentucky) Derby horse.--Winning jockey Kent Desormeaux
May 3, Grade I Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, 1 1/14 Mile. Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby in dominating fashion, becoming the first horse since 1915 to take the race off only three prior career starts. In doing so, he also became the first winner to break from post 20 since 1929.
In spite of predictions from several quarters that the race would begin with a fast early pace, the fractions were moderate. Bob Black Jack, who broke from post 13, took the early lead, going the first quarter-mile in :23.30. Meanwhile, Big Brown wasn't far from that pace but went into the first turn four wide, outside of Bob Black, Cowboy Cal and Recapturetheglory. The latter two horses broke from posts 17 and 18, respectively.
Bob Black Jack led through the first half-mile in :47.04 and six furlongs in 1:11.14.
As he ran down the backstretch under Kent Desormeaux, Big Brown was "just cruising" in sixth place and not into the bit, Desormeaux said. The jockey said he asked for Big Brown to move going into the far turn, improving position to gain a narrow lead with a quarter mile to go. At that point, Desormeaux said he asked Big Brown to wait, then at the 3/16 pole, "I showered him."
Big Brown gained a 2 1/2-length lead with an eighth of a mile to go and drew off to win by 4 3/4 lengths. He was timed in 2:01.82 for the mile and a quarter race.
May 17, Grade I Preakness Stakes, Pimlico, 1 3/16 Mile. Big Brown dominated the field in Preakness 133 to win by 5 1/4 lengths.
Easily the best under Kent Desormeaux, Big Brown's time of 1:54.80 was a little over a second off the stakes record of 1:53 3/5 held by Tank's Prospect (1985) and Louis Quatorze (1996).
Gayego, wearing blinkers for the first time, and Riley Tucker took the early battle to Big Brown, leading through the first six furlongs in :23.59, :46:81and 1:10.48. By the time the trio hit the second turn, Big Brown, looking invincible, went into another gear, distanced himself from the field down the stretch, and hit the finish line under wraps.
Macho Again and Icabad Crane finished second and third, followed by Racecar Rhapsody, to outlast eight other overmatched foes. Kentucky Bear, who stumbled at the break, was never in contention. Gayego and Riley Tucker both faded badly.
Going down the backside when Kent got him out and he was laying third on the outside, I knew it was over. He just bided his time as long as he could. I only saw him ask for run once just to separate himself, then he guided him to the wire. It was beautiful.
I was nervous, scared about the two weeks, stuff like that, but hes overcome everything. It doesnt look like he got on his belly today, so we should have enough horse to get the job done.--Trainer Rick Dutrow
Ill tell you what, I asked him for his stride at the corner almost déjà vu to the Derby. I looked between my legs, under my arms, and they were eight back. I just stopped riding and reeled him in and made sure he didnt pull himself up."--Kent Desormeaux
Performance at Age Two
In his sole race last year, Big Brown won a 1 1/16-mile turf race at Saratoga in September by 11 1/4 lengths after leading all the way in splits of :47.54 and 1:11.84 and a final time of 1:40.33.
Purchased for $950,000 at Keeneland September 2006.
He's out of Better Than Honour, the dam of 2006 and 2007 Belmont Stakes winners Jazil and Rags to Riches.
Performance at Age Three
Feb. 23, Maiden Special Weight, Kyoto, About 1 1/8 Mile. Racing for a $125,000 purse, Casino Drive won by 11 1/2 lengths, timed in 1:54.40. After that, he bounced around from different training centers and Japanese racetracks, dodging an outbreak of influenza.
May 10, Grade II Peter Pan Stakes, Belmont Park, 1 1/8 Mile. Casino Drive looked like the real deal, easily winning the Grade II Peter Pan Stakes in just his second start. It was an impressive race for Casino Drive, who did everything right and professionally in his 5 3/4-length victory.
Under Kent Desormeaux, who won the Kentucky Derby last week with Big Brown, Casino Drive saved ground behind a fast pace and came out of the turn between horses to victory in 1:47.87. Sent off at 6-5 odds, he paid $4.50 to win.
Casino Drive acted up a bit in the paddock, which Desormeaux dismissed as "playful exuberance," but he settled once the race began. He nestled himself on the rail, as Spark Candle, racing with blinkers, kept the heat on Mint Lane through splits of 23.08, 46.31, 1:10.47 and 1:35.26.
Desormeaux calmly waited until the stretch before tipping his mount out and sending him onward to the Belmont Stakes a winner. Mint Lane held on for second, while a late-running Ready's Echo charged down the stretch to get third. Golden Spikes, who ran just behind the early pace and made a strong middle move, faded to finish fourth.
"Today, he proved his ability. He had so much to overcome: only one race, more than two-month layoff, long trip and quarantine. Now, we have three weeks to go to the Belmont Stakes, and he has three weeks to improve. And he has so much potential to improve. He likes it here at Belmont Park. He feels like he's home. He's an American-bred, so he is home."--Nobutaka Tada, managing director of Globe Equine Management Ltd.
"I certainly understand how Jazil and Rags to Riches won the Belmont. Yeah, he can run a lot. It's going to be fun. He's a phenomenal talent, and we've got our hands full with this one. It's going to be ultimately exciting for all of the fans. Hes got that stride."--Kent Desormeaux
Performance at Age Two
Unraced.
Horsephotos/NTRA DENIS OF CORK (FL)
Breeder: Westbury Stables
Trainer: David Carroll
Owner: William K Warren, Jr.
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Harlan's Holiday (Harlan, Christmas in Aiken)
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Unbridled Girl (Unbridled, Sound Wisdom)
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 3-3-6-0-2 (14) 1.80
Foal Date: 2-16-05
Bought for $250,000 at the Barretts March 2007 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale.
Performance at Age Three
Jan. 19, Entry-Level Allowance, Fair Grounds, One Mile 40 Yards. Denis of Cork 4-5) returned mixed messages in this win by a head over Unbridled Vicar (3-1). On the positive side, Denis of Cork was four-wide around both turns and down the backstretch, while placed fifth, then fourth--and he won on the slop. On the negative side, he was hard-used in the stretch to get up over Unbridled Vicar.
The winning time was 1:42.83. Initial fractions were :25.32, :49.89 and :114.90.
Calvin Borel came to Fair Grounds from Oaklawn to ride Denis of Cork, his only mount on the 10-race program. He was struggling the whole way around, and there was no pace in the race. He was swimming the whole way, but thats all right. He has a big heart and he did the job.--Calvin Borel
Feb. 18, Grade III Southwest Stakes, Oaklawn Park, One Mile. Behind fast up-front fractions of :22.72 and :45.25, Denis of Cork made up an 18-length deficit and unfurled a three-wide rally down the stretch under Robby Albarado to capture the race by 2 1/4 lengths. Sierra Sunset (11-1), who raced relatively forwardly the entire trip, easily took second. The winner covered the distance in 1:37.89.
An 8-1 morning line, Denis of Cork opened up in the wagering at 2-1. From there, his odds drifted up until post time. He was sent off at 9-2 under Robby Albarado.
April 5, Grade II Illinois Derby, Hawthorne, 1 1/8 Mile. Denis of Cork was steadied into the first turn but never mounted a challenge. He was a soundly beaten fifth, defeated 8 1/2 lengths by front-running Recapturetheglory.
We had a good trip, and when I asked him at the 3/8ths pole, I thought he was ready to go. He kept going but there was no kick to get there.--Julien Leparoux
May 3, Grade I Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, 1 1/4 Mile. Calvin Borel took Denis of Cork straight over to the rail from post 16. Saving ground the entire trip, Denis of Cork was twentieth of 20 horses after a quarter-mile, a half-mile and six furlongs. He started passing horses on the far turn and continued doing that in the stretch to finish third, beaten 8 1/4 lengths by Big Brown.
On May 19, DENIS OF CORK breezed five in 1:01 (5/31) at CD.
Performance at Age Two
Denis of Cork won his debut race at Churchill Downs on Nov. 24, timed in 1:22.42 going seven furlongs. He was eleventh of 12 at the first call, then uncorked a sustained drive to best Stungbythestorm by three parts of a length. The runner-up was over seven lengths clear of the show horse. Denis of Cork was hard-ridden at the end.
We would have been disappointed if he had gotten beat. He is a nice colt, and he had trained with Blackberry Road. He was ready to run the first of the meet, but the quarantine put that on hold. He is a big, leggy horse and I didnt even plan to run him at Keeneland, and thats why I was shooting for the first of this meet. I wanted to run him before we left. I will look to stretch him out at the Fair Grounds.--David Carroll
MACHO AGAIN (FL)
Breeder: Milan Kosanovich
Trainer: Dallas Stewart
Owner: West Point Stable
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Macho Uno (Holy Bull, Primal Force)
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Go Donna Go (Wild Again, Proud Nova)
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 5-2-5-0-0 (12) 3.80
Foal Date: 2-25-05
Macho Again was bought for $85,000 at the 2006 OBS 2006 Yearling Sale, then resold for $150,000 at the OBS 2007 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale.
Performance at Age Three
Jan. 12, Grade III Lecomte Stakes, Fair Grounds, One Mile. Macho Again was the early betting favorite and was sent off the second choice (7-2), but he showed little and finished sixth, beaten 6 3/4 lengths by Z Fortune. Macho Again never impressed on the front of the field, placed sixth, sixth and sixth at the first three calls.
Feb. 28, Entry-Level Allowance, Fair Grounds, Six Furlongs. Sent off at 4-5 off a 3-1 morning line, Macho Again stayed 6 1/2 lengths back of an opening quarter-mile run in :21.98 and started moving on the turn. Going five wide into the stretch, he bore in a bit before drawing off to win by 4 1/2 lengths. Time: 1:11.54.
March 22, Grade II Lane's End Stakes, Turfway Park, 1 1/8 Mile. Macho Again (16-1) was bumped at the start, raced along with other horses, but couldn't make any headway and failed to launch a late bid. He finished seventh, beaten 12 3/4 lengths by Adriano (9-2).
April 26, Derby Trial, Churchill Downs, 7 1/2 Furlongs. Macho Again, returning to a single turn, came from a pack of horses at the top of the stretch to win by a half-length over Kodiak Kowboy, timed in 1:28.45.
Hes a really honest colt. He had a little bit of trouble at the quarter-pole. Kodiak Kowboy dug in tough at the sixteenth pole and Macho had to work hard to get by him and he finished up really well.
"He loves the track. He likes the dirt. Weve just got to keep him off the Polytrack. He trains well over it, but he just doesnt get down and run on it. There are a ton of good 3-year-old races coming up, so well see (what comes next). This horse still has to mature a little bit, but hes got a lot of fight in him."--Dallas Stewart
May 17, Grade I Preakness Stakes, Pimlico, 1 3/16 Mile. Macho Again, at high odds, finished second to Big Brown, beaten 5 1/4 lengths. He saved ground early, started passing horses approaching the turn but was steadied on the turn, then was swung five wide into the stretch, where he finished with energy.
He really, really ran great. I knew he was a real nice horse and came home great. He hooked a superstar, you know.--Trainer Dallas Stewart
We just got beat by a monster. He might just be a Triple Crown winner. We ran huge and thats very important. This is kind of the best second place Ive ever had. I dont like to be second, but its not bad to be second to this horse.--Jockey Julien Leparoux
Performance at Age Two
He broke his maiden in his third start, going seven furlongs at Churchill Downs on Oct. 28.
Nov. 24, Entry-Level Allowance, Churchill Downs, One Mile. Macho Again (5-1) lost by a neck to Monba (4-1), who won for the second time in two starts. Macho Again apparently keyed his race to the winner, racing just behind him every step of the way. The pair were tactically placed fourth and third, respectively, at the first three calls, following opening fractions of :23.25, 4:6.30 and 1:11.08 set by Isabull, then Web Gem, both of whom eventually ran a few lengths up the track.
Macho Again was 1 3/4 lengths clear of the third finisher, Your Round.
Horsephotos/NTRA TALE OF EKATI (KY)
Breeder: Charles Fipke
Trainer: Barclay Tagg
Owner: Charles Fipke
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Tale of the Cat (Storm Cat, Yarn)
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Silence Beauty (Sunday Silence, Maplejinsky)
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 9-1-12-2-0 (24) 2.00
Foal Date: 3-31-05
Note that Japan leading sire and 1989 Kentucky Derby winner Sunday Silence is his dam sire.
Performance at Age Three
March 8, Grade II Louisiana Derby, Fair Grounds, 1 1/16 Mile. Tale of Ekati (9-2) didn't find much early rhythm and ran evenly home sixth, beaten 6 1/2 lengths by Pyro.
It didnt work out the way we had planned. I was supposed to be close, but we broke badly.--Edgar Prado
April 5, Grade I Wood Memorial, Aqueduct, 1 1/8 Mile. Tale of Ekati surged up the rail to wear down front-running War Pass near the wire and win. War Pass was second, followed by a late-running Court Vision. It was the second straight upset of War Pass, who was favored at 4-5 odds. Tale of Ekati paid $19.00 to win.
The final time, on a drying-out track rated fast, was a slow 1:52.35.
Both War Pass and Tale of Ekati broke from the gate much better than they did in their most recent outings. War Pass seized the early lead, heading up the field through a quater-mile in a fast :22.46 and a half-mile in :46.07 while being pressured by Inner Light, Court Vision's stable mate.
Tale of Ekati, who had his head turned sideways when the gate opened for the Grade II Louisiana Derby, got away cleanly as well and tracked the two leaders in third, on the outside down the backstretch while moving closer to them.
After War Pass went six furlongs in 1:11.50 and a mile in 1:38.42, he began to grow weary as Tale of Ekati and Edgar Prado inched nearer.
We always though he was a good horse. Last time, we took him to the Louisiana Derby. He got a little tangled up in the gate there and ran a disappointing race. We still felt good about him, and we worked out some of those issues in the gate.
"He showed up today big time. I thought War Pass was the horse to beat. It was nice to see Inner Light go after War Pass. We were laying a little closer than I wanted him to be, but Edgar has an intuitiveness that has served him pretty well for the last 30 years.
"I have a group of horses in Lexington, and hell ship down there tomorrow morning. Big Brown and War Pass are both in the Derby; that might work out well for us.--Barclay Tagg
Im still in a daze. This is wonderful; of course, he had to beat a great horse, War Pass. This is our prep race for the Derby -- thats where were going next if this didnt take too much out of him. Winning this race is like finding that first diamond, that kind of excitement.
"Hes named for our diamond mine in Ekati, up in the Northwest Territory (of Canada), about 200 miles north of Yellowknife. Id really like to come back to New York and win the Belmont Stakes--that would be my biggest ambition.--Charles Fipke
He didnt break that well (in Louisiana). Today, he broke sharp, and he made my job easier. I had a beautiful trip, and I knew War Pass was going very fast. I was very proud of him. He kept on trying all the way. As far as the Kentucky Derby, well see how he cools out and comes out and go from there.--Edgar Prado
May 3, Grade I Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, 1 1/4 Mile. Tale of Ekati finished a creditable fourth at odds of 37-1, pretty high for a Wood Memorial winner.
Tale of Ekati broke well but was steadied along with others while in tight quarters the opening quarter-mile. Crossing under the wire for the first time, he was ninth. He was kept toward the inside around the first turn and down the backstretch while inching up to seventh place. On the far turn, Tale of Ekati was within striking distance. He went six wide into the stretch, but he could not suddenly accelerate like Big Brown and ran on to be beaten 11 lengths.
On May 20, TALE OF EKATI worked four in :46.80 (1/37) at BEL.
Performance at Age Two
In his debut, Tale of Ekati crushed a field of Belmont Park maidens on July 7.
July 26, Grade II Sanford Stakes, Saratoga, Six Furlongs. Tale of Ekati and The Roundhouse both closed to get second and third, separated by a nose. On a track generally favoring mid-pack closers, Ready's Image stalked three wide along the backstretch following Fed Watcher's fractions of :22.08 and :45.30, started to take over after four furlongs, got clear in upper stretch and drew off. John Velazquez reminded him he was in a race. Final time: 1:09.90. He won by four.
I was pleased he finished second in a Grade 2. I think he is going to need more ground, but I knew that all along. We just need to get through some of these sprints. He handled the dirt in his face while being on the inside. After the wire, he passed the winner.--Barclay Tagg
Tale of Ekati bucked shins after the Sanford, but trainer Tagg said the colt mended quickly and trained well subsequently.
Sept. 15, Grade I Futurity Stakes, Belmont, Seven Furlongs. After his colt hit the gate at the start, Eibar Coa took Tale of Ekati (3-1) on a rail ride home to defeat Kodiak Kowboy (4-5 favorite) by a length.
Mythical Pegasus (18-1) challenged The Leopard (5-2) for the lead from the start, and they battled through splits of :22.90 and :46.46. Meanwhile, Kodiak Kowboy, who had won four straight, took a clear, wide path at the top of the stretch. Tale of Ekati had hung back a bit, his jockey riding high while waiting for room. When Kodiak Kowboy appeared to have the leaders targeted in the stretch, Coa started riding Tale of Ekati and yanked him over to the rail, where he ran by the leaders to win by an easy length. The time: 1:22.33.
Weve been very high on him since weve gotten him to the track. He came back after his last race with some sore shins. He came back well in his workouts. Im with him all day, every day, and you can really tell when a horse is coming to himself. We are very excited about him.--Barclay Tagg
He was very professional, and really helped me out. I was in trouble the whole race, being trapped inside. He was patient with me and didnt get stupid. As soon as he came through, I knew he had it. Ive liked him form he first time I sat on him. I think he is very good.--Eibar Coa
Oct. 27, Grade I Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Monmouth Park, 1 1/16 Mile. The not-so-good news was that Tale of Ekati finished fourth. The bad news was that he was beaten 17 1/2 lengths by War Pass. He worked really fast, too fast, just before the Cup, and trainer Tagg was not happy going into the Cup..
TOMCITO (KY)
Breeder: Chesapeake Farm & Darley
Trainer: Dante Zanelli
Owner: Stud Jet Set
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Street Cry (Machiavellian, Helen Street)
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Inside or Outside (Eastern Echo, Dramatical)
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 6-3-9-0-0 (18) 3.00
Foal Date: 2-13-05
Performance at Age Three
There's no comparison (to Cannonero II). They were two different horses. It was a different case for Canonero, because (his connections) knew what they had. That might be the case for our horse, but we're in a different place.--Trainer Dante Zanelli, speaking the week of March 16
March 29, Grade I Florida Derby, Gulfstream Park, 1 1/8 Mile. Tomcito was third to Big Brown, but he was beaten over 12 lengths. It was his first start of the year, so he really did not do too badly.
April 19, Grade II Coolmore Lexington Stakes, Keeneland, 1 1/16 Mile. Tomcito didn't have much early speed, nor did he close into fast fractions, and that resulted in a sixth-place finish, beaten almost four lengths.
May 10, Grade II Peter Pan Stakes, Belmont Park, 1 1/8 Mile. Tomcito failed to menace and finished seventh. He was not positioned better than fifth at any point during the race.
Performance at Age Two
On Nov. 17, Tomcito won the Grade I Peruvian Derby Nacional, at about 1 1/2 mile, as a 2-year-old racing against Southern Hemisphere-bred 3-year-olds--he was regarded as a 3-year-old under their foaling schedule. The time for his 3 1/2-length win was 2:35.40.
He also won the Grade I Classico Ricardo Ortiz de Zevallos at about 10 furlongs by 9 3/4 lengths on Oct. 20--timed in 2:09.60.
He was second in the Grade I Polla de Potrillos - Roberto Alvarez Calderón, the Peruvian 2000 Guineas, on Sept. 23. That race was about a mile; he was clocked in 1:39.80.
Who Is Rick Dutrow?Add Patrick Reynolds to an ever-growing list. Reynolds, the original trainer of Big Brown, stands on the sidelines as Rick Dutrow prepares the would-be champion for a historic run at the Belmont Stakes. You may recall a similar fate a year ago for Helen Pitts, who trained the Preakness champion Curlin to open his career before a private sale sent the would-be stable star packing.
But this column is not going where you think it is.
No, we're not here to lament the losses of Pitts and Reynolds and play the "what if" card from racing's sob-story deck. In fact, the ever-growing list that Reynolds has joined isn't about Triple Crown race winners who changed addresses, but rather trainers who have seen their one-time stable reps blossom in the shedrow of Rick Dutrow.
To say that Dutrow's most important career successes have been complete resurrection projects would be a stretch in most cases. Many of the newcomers had shown promise, and slick-moving owners with vast checkbooks swooped in at opportune times. But there's absolutely no disputing that Big Brown's trainer has been down this road before, picking up a live horse and taking him or her to astronomical levels.
Movin' On Up
Dutrow has trained a total of nine Grade 1 stakes winners in his career, with Big Brown the latest and Carson Hollow's 2002 victory in the Prioress at Belmont the first. Of those nine Grade 1 winners, an astounding eight of them began their careers with other trainers. Only Carson Hollow developed into a Grade 1 winner exclusively under Dutrow's tutelage.
Sis City, winner of the 2005 Ashland, was claimed from the Steve Asmussen barn at Saratoga in her third lifetime start. Outside of Carson Hollow and Sis City, the other seven Dutrow ascendants to Grade 1 glory came via private purchase or trainer change. The list includes the likes of Big Brown and 2005 Horse of the Year Saint Liam, who was just 2-for-8 for trainer Tony Reinstedler prior to moving day. Also toss in a few eventual Breeders' Cup champions, Kip Deville (Mike Neatherlin) and Silver Train (George Mikhalides), who had 14 combined lifetime starts and no graded stakes wins before Dutrow's touch.
A detailed look at all the Grade 1 winners for Dutrow is included at the bottom of this column.
Who Are These Guys?
The Dutrow projects almost universally seem to do it without pedigree. Big Brown hails from an un-ballyhooed family led by sire Boundary, whose 11 seasons prior to being pensioned in 2005 were topped by sprinter Pomeroy. Boundary was exclusively a sprinter, and Big Brown's successes at 1-1/4 miles and 1-3/16 miles certainly aren't attributable to his gene pool.
Meanwhile, Dutrow's BC Mile winner Kip Deville, an Oklahoma-bred, is by little-known stallion Kipling. Sis City was by Slew City Slew, whose breeding portfolio pretty much begins and ends with Lava Man.
And here's a five-spot if you can name the sire of G1 DeFrancis Dash and G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen winner Benny the Bull. Stop it: you didn't get Lucky Lionel. Who? Exactly.
Others from the Pick-Up Game
Below the cusp of the Grade 1 winners, Dutrow also has enjoyed graded-stakes success with a host of other pick-ups. Take, for instance, Offlee Wild, winner of the G2 Massachusetts Handicap and a one-time member of the barn of respected Midwestern old-timer T.V. Smith.
Then there's his elite sprint mare Oprah Winney, G2 winner of the Barbara Fritchie Handicap and an original cast member with the Anthony Ferraro barn at Calder. Want more? Graded-stakes winner Thunder Blitz re-found glory in his final two starts after moving from Joe Orseno and Bobby Frankel to Dutrow's shedrow, going out a graded stakes winner in his final career start after seemingly falling off form.
Day One Dandies
To his credit, Dutrow has crafted the entire career of G2 Meadowlands Cup and G2 Godolphin Mile winner Diamond Stripes, as well as G2 Pennsylvania Derby winner Love of Money. Those victories, paired with the graded-stakes successes of Carson Hollow, mark the top-rung victories achieved by horses Dutrow has trained from day one of their racing careers.
Explaining The Phenomenon
The Dutrow family long has been in the horse buying and selling business. It's the mentality taught by Dickie Dutrow to his sons, Rick and Tony. Dickie Dutrow was a dominant trainer in the mid-Atlantic who moved stock in and out of the barn in great numbers. He won what was then a North American record 352 races in 1975.
Rick Dutrow himself made his first impressions in the game through the claiming box; so he cut his teeth as a horseman with new acquisitions on a regular basis. It's also well-known that most of Dutrow's owners through the years have been players in the buy-and-sell game, not those with split-railed breeding farms or front-row seats at the yearling sales. The stock a trainer gets is directly in relation to the kind of owners he or she may have.
The two explanations above answer the question as to why Dutrow has come to train these types of horses in his barn. But they do not explain how he so often has moved his runners from the ranks of decent or promising to superstar. That's a pandora's box with more questions than answers.
Skeptics will cite Dutrow's past run-ins with medication infractions, and/or his recent, open admission that he gives his horses the steroid Winstrol on a monthly basis, not for any other reason, he says, than it's legal to do so.
Whether or not you believe Rick Dutrow develops these new horses to his barn through superior horsemanship or better medicine, or a combination of both, it's impossible to overlook the fact that every Grade 1 winner he's had since Carson Hollow in 2002 had started his or her career in another barn.
Dutrow's Career Grade 1 Winners
Benny The Bull
Former trainer: Jeff Talley
Status when he arrived in barn: 4-8 lifetime; won $125,000 Prairie Meadows Sprint with 108 Beyer and 111 Beyer in previous allowance win; never tried graded stakes yet. Picked up in July of 4-year-old year.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2007 DeFrancis Dash, 2008 Golden Shaheen
Current status: active.
Big Brown
Former trainer: Patrick Reynolds
Status when he arrived in barn: 1-1 lifetime; won Saratoga maiden special weight race on the turf by 11-1/4 lengths with 90 Beyer.
Status when she arrived in barn: with Dutrow throughout, winning first four starts en route to 10: 6-3-0 career. Also a G2, G3 winner.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2002 Prioress, the first Grade 1 win of the trainer's career.
Current status: died due to complications from colic surgery after her racing career had ended.
Kip Deville
Former trainer: Michael Neatherlin
Status when he arrived in barn: 4-8 lifetime, including 2 listed stakes in Texas. 9th, beaten 15-1/2 lengths by Lawyer Ron in G3 Rebel, only graded try. Picked up in June of 3-year-old year.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2007 Kilroe Mile, 2007 Breeders' Cup Mile, 2008 Maker's Mark Mile.
Current status: active.
Saint Liam
Former trainer: Tony Reinstedler
Status when he arrived in barn: 2-8 lifetime with 0-3 mark in stakes races, registering 100 Beyer, career-best, in Churchill allowance win. Beaten 27 lengths in 2 career graded stakes tries. Picked up in August of 3-year-old year.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2005 Donn, 2005 Stephen Foster, 2005 Woodward, 2005 Breeders'
Cup Classic.
Current status: After entering stud at Lane's End, he died in 2006 after slipping and falling, suffering an untreatable leg fracture. He had 115 mares in foal prior to his passing.
Sis City
Former trainer: Steve Asmussen
Status when she arrived in barn: 0-2 prior to $50,000 claiming race win in which Dutrow
claimed her. Picked up in August of her 2-year-old season.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2005 Ashland.
Current status: broodmare for Stonerside Farm; first foal arrived 4/24/08, a colt by Distorted Humor.
Silver Train
Former trainer: George Mikhalides
Status when he arrived in barn: 1-6 lifetime, finishing 4th by 13-1/2 lengths in only career stakes try in Champagne at age two, never topping 85 Beyer. Picked up in May of 3-year-old season.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2005 Breeders' Cup Sprint, 2006 Met Mile.
Current status: retired, entered stud in 2007 at Vinery.
Silver Wagon
Former trainer: Ralph Ziadie
Status when he arrived in barn: 3-14 and winner of the Grade 1 Hopeful as age 2. Lost last 10 stakes tries prior to Dutrow move. Picked up in November of 4-year-old year. (Also bounced back to Ziadie for two unsuccessful Florida starts during winter of '05-'06.)
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2007 Carter.
Current status: retired, entered stud in 2008 at Hurricane Hall.
Wonder Lady Anne L.
Former trainer: Tim Ritvo
Status when he arrived in barn: 1-3 lifetime, exiting a third-start maiden breaker at Calder by 9 lengths. Picked up in June of her 2-year-old season.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2006 Coaching Club of America Oaks
Current status: retired in early 2007 to catch that spring's breeding season and delivered a Giant's Causeway foal this year.
The Day at the Races
BY JERRY BOSSERT
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Wednesday, May 21st 2008, 6:45 PM
Fit the Crown for Big Brown.
"I'll be in the winner's circle when they get to the quarter pole," trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. said Wednesday morning during a press conference should Big Brown run his race in the June 7 Belmont Stakes.
The Derby and Preakness winner made his return to the track Wednesday morning when he jogged a lap around Belmont's mile-and-a-half oval.
As for Peter Pan Stakes winner Casino Drive, the clear-cut second choice, the trainer has no fear.
"No chance," Dutrow said of the Japanese invader.
Dutrow also claimed that a win in the Belmont wouldn't necessarily signal the end of the racing career of the 3-year-old son of Boundary.
"I'm expecting to train him through the Travers and the Breeders' Cup Classic," the 48-year-old conditioner said.
There has been much speculation that Big Brown would be retired if he wins the Belmont.
Meanwhile, Casino Drive continues to thrive, according to Nobutaka Tada, the racing manager for owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto, since winning the May 10th Peter Pan Stakes.
"We don't know if we spoil or not," Tada said of Big Brown's Triple Crown try. "I just try to keep him happy. That's my concern."
Tada said Casino Drive would probably work on Wednesday, and he will probably name a jockey within the next couple of days.
Kent Desormeaux rode Casino Drive in the Peter Pan but is the regular jockey for Big Brown.
Edgar Prado, Garrett Gomez, Victor Espinoza all have been floated as possible jockeys, along with Japan's own Yutaka Take, who rode Casino Drive to victory in his debut.
"We'll see what is best for the Belmont Stakes," Tada said.
Casino Drive will not race on any medication for the Belmont as he did in his Peter Pan victory.
"No medication," Tada said. "He runs to the best of his ability without medication."
Dutrow admits to giving Big Brown the steroid Winstrol on the 15th of every month because it is legal in New York.
"I don't see it being a problem," Dutrow said.
Tada thinks steroids are a major concern in the sport.
"There are no steroids in Japan," he said. "For the future of the industry it's a problem. We keep the horse natural. We want his natural ability when he becomes a stallion."
PORTLAND, ORIn a move that added the world's pre-eminent equine athlete to its stable of endorsers Tuesday, Nike signed Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Big Brown to a seven-year, $80 million endorsement contract that included a $10 million signing bonus as well as the creation of a signature horseshoe, the Air Brown.
"Nike is ecstatic to sign the top star in horseracing," CEO and Nike president Mike Parker said, unveiling the "jumphorse" logo as the Kentucky-bred colt trotted onstage. "From Michael Jordan to Tiger Woods, Nike has created formidable partnerships with the very best in sports. I can't say how proud we are to work with B.B., who is an extraordinary individual both on and off the track."
"Big B doesn't complain when he gets the far outside starting gate position," Parker added. "He just gallops. And he gives hope to everyone out there that if they train hard, push themselves, and keep their snout clean, they can accomplish anything."
Big Brown, whose Nike endorsement deal is the largest ever for a thoroughbred, was flown from New York to Portland in a private Nike jet stocked with the world's finest bourbon, caviar, sugar cubes, cigars, carrots, and hay. Upon arriving on the west coast, the equine superstar's handlers whisked him past a throng of cheering fans into a stretch limousine bound for Nike headquarters, where Brown, his 11-horse entourage, and his team of lawyers reviewed the contract one last time before signing.
Slated for release on June 1, the lightweight, U-shaped Air Brown horseshoe features Nike's patented air-cushioning system, consisting of a pressurized gas encapsulated in polyurethane and aluminum. According to Nike engineers, the innovative technology was created to provide equal measures of comfort, support, and performance on both dirt and grass tracks by reducing shock, distributing pressure, and protecting the hooves from overpronation. Big Brown intends to debut the Air Brown horseshoes on June 7 at the Belmont Stakes, when he attempts to become the first horse to win the elusive Triple Crown in 30 years.
Although Big Brown was approached by a number of suitors from sportswear manufacturers including Adidas, Reebok, and Pony, the undefeated 3-year-old was ultimately won over by Nike's willingness to work closely with him to create a horseshoe conforming to his strong sense of personal style as well as his physical needs. Big Brown was reportedly impressed by Nike's efforts when technicians used cameras to record his gait from multiple angles while he ran on a treadmill.
"Because Big Brown's hooves have been prone to injuries, we created 3D computer models to map out their exact size and shape in order to design a customized horseshoe that fits perfectly," Nike technician Kenneth Phillips said. "We've also determined he can reduce the risk of impact injuries during his workouts by exercising on a quartet of stationary elliptical machines."
Nike marketing personnel said that throughout the design process, Big Brown has viewed his trademark sportswear as a lifestyle rather than a line of products bearing his image. Whether approving design sketches or choosing materials, the racehorse has emphasized the promotion of individual identity by insisting the Air Brown buyer should be able to customize their horseshoes with alternate color schemes, optional blinking LEDs, or Swarovski crystals.
"B-Squared brings a lot of energy to this projectyou should see him cantering around in a frenzy, ranging back and forth in the studio space," Parker said. "He's really exposing a side of himself that many people haven't seen before. He's showing everyone that he's for real."
While some critics have insinuated that Big Brown is too young and lacks experience, Parker confirmed his company's confidence in the colt's potential when he pointed out that the racehorse is undefeated in all five of his career starts and yet still takes time to volunteer in the community.
"We signed Jordan when he was just a rookie and brought LeBron on before he even played in the NBA," Parker said. "Those guys turned out great. Well, B.B. is like three Kobe Bryants, two LaDainian Tomlinsons, and an Alex Rodriguez all rolled up in one. "
"Big B might be an upstanding citizen, but he's totally rock 'n' roll," Parker added. "You never know if he's going to come out of the gate with a green, purple, natural, or orange mane."
Despite being overwhelmed with pre-orders of Air Browns, Nike has maintained that Big Brown's new casual line, the B2 Titanium HorseNeaks, would be available for purchase in August.
Pletcher 's Belmont Participation in Question. Trainer Todd Pletcher said yesterday that Behindatthebar is doubtful for the Belmont Stakes. The colt is recovering from a foot bruise that kept him out of the Preakness, according to Pletcher.
Pletcher said Ready's Echo is still in the mix for the Belmont. A decision is still pending
Hialeah Park remains a horse racing tragedy
Click-2-Listen
By HAL HABIB
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 22, 2008
HIALEAH This is the place where the local TV stations sent news crews to cover the trimming of the palm trees to usher in the racing season. This is where a horse, who received 20 letters per day, was given the key to the city, although he surely was infinitely more interested in the carrots and sugar cubes dangling from that key. This wasn't just a lavish place to die for, but a place for the dead, home to the ashes of more than 200 patrons.
This is Hialeah Park, site of a great tragedy in American horse racing.
Seven years ago this week, no horse died here.
One of the most beautiful tracks in the world did.
As the sun began to set on May 22, 2001, Cheeky Miss won the final race and a few thousand hard cores filed out one last time from a place whose opulence and history were run down in the stretch by the relentless charge of inaccessibility and industry infighting.
Forget for a moment the hows and whys. Forget the ample blame tossed upon owner John Brunetti, who for seven years has kept the gates to this palace locked, which even he concedes shouldn't be. Instead, consider that two Saturdays from now, when Big Brown is expected to become the 12th Triple Crown champion, the eyes of the sports world - not just the horse racing world - will be on Belmont Park.
In Hialeah's time, that was routine.
Truman, LBJ, DiMaggio, Capone, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor - they all came here. The Kennedys? Why, of course the Kennedys came, boarding that special train that the highest of Palm Beach's high society rode from the island directly to Hialeah's clubhouse.
Never again.
That's the honest answer to the first question that invariably comes up when that romantic era of Hialeah Park is mentioned: Will they ever resume racing here? Is there even the slightest chance? The odds flicker from none to slim, though you won't find them on the toteboard here. That was long washed away by a barrage of hurricanes that left a bizarre juxtaposition among a grandstand, clubhouse and track surface in disrepair while the famed paddock area remains in near-pristine condition.
Brunetti says he spends about $1 million annually on paddock upkeep but estimates it would take as much as $30 million to restore the rest of the facility for racing. As a developer, he has proposed using part of the grounds for residential purposes while converting the heart of the racing area, including the grandstand, into a racing museum and amphitheater.
Various plans have been on the drawing board for so long, it's pointless to dwell on what will be.
All everybody knows is what Hialeah is today - off-limits - isn't what it should be. Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito, whose horses hold two Hialeah records: "Oh, you talk about history - I would call it the queen mother. Hialeah is as good as any track in America."
Alex Fuentes would love to speak of Hialeah in present tense someday, too.
Fuentes, 31, is head of Citizens to Save Hialeah Park, having fallen in love with the venue even though he never saw a race there. Two weeks ago, Brunetti floated his newest idea, of donating the clubhouse, grandstand and paddock to the city, which could turn it into a park.
"All big cities have a central park; I view this as our central park," says Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina, who believes there is enough land to combine that park space with residential and commercial development.
"The park was open before the city was incorporated and it tells the story of Hialeah and its rich history. It's important to preserve that for future generations."
Brunetti's proposal surprised Fuentes, who hopes the 11/8-mile track can be included, admitting that perhaps 10 years into the future, after the buildings have been restored, it might be feasible to have a 20- to 30-day "boutique" racing meet at Hialeah.
"It's one of the crazy ideas I have," Fuentes says. "It can be a very nice, niche meet."
Brunetti says such romantic notions come from those who "don't know the economics of racing," particularly the never-ending battles with Calder and Gulfstream over prime winter dates. Brunetti says he is asked about reopening Hialeah whenever he visits Calder or Gulfstream.
"My answer to them, particularly with the horsemen, has always been, 'Where were you when I needed you?''' Brunetti says. At age 77, Brunetti, viewed as Hialeah's savior when he bought the facility in 1977, is weary of fighting.
He acknowledges critics "blamed everything" on him but remains sensitive when the subject shifts from him to his track.
"Obviously I'm not happy or proud of this," he says while escorting a reporter through the park. "I hope you use a little discretion on how you handle it. This is part of my family."
Seven years of mourning, and he's still not done.
"You want to know something?" Brunetti says. "I don't think I'm over it yet."
The only comparable track, most agree, is Saratoga in New York. Former Sports Illustrated racing writer Bill Nack calls Hialeah a "national treasure" that the Department of the Interior should transform into a tourist attraction.
"Hialeah is the Saratoga of winter racing, or it always was the place where rich people gathered and had a lot of fun," Nack says. "They did it in a beautiful setting with the winds of history at your back. It was the same feeling at Hialeah in the winter as it was at Saratoga in the summer."
In 1958, The Miami News quoted a local teacher telling her students, "A year is divided into four seasons . . . spring, summer, fall and Hialeah."
In this golden age, Calder didn't exist and as far as Palm Beach was concerned, it didn't matter that Gulfstream was closer. Two of Hialeah's founding fathers were Palm Beach's Joseph Widener and E.R. Bradley, who dispatched designers to borrow architectural and botanical concepts from Monaco, Paris, England and, yes, Saratoga. In a particular stroke of genius, flamingos were imported from Cuba for the infield lake. Soon, noble male patrons flocked the track wearing pink suits.
"Hialeah was built for Palm Beach," Brunetti says. "You had so many of those great families, particularly in racing, that were up in Palm Beach and you had the train that brought them all down here. It became a social event, an hour ride on the train."
Some came for the racing, some for the rice pudding, but everyone came to feel special. This was an age when uniformed policemen saluted as each car rolled down the famous tree-lined driveway. A time when if you stood up, ushers tapped you on the shoulder, a quiet reminder there were ladies and gentlemen behind you.
"If you had diamonds," Joe Hirsch, famed columnist for the Daily Racing Form once said, "you wore them at Hialeah."
Nothing shined like the horses: War Admiral. Whirlaway. Assault. Citation. Seattle Slew.
Triple Crown winners, all. And Nashua, the 1955 Horse of the Year who was expected to draw perhaps 35,000 when he ran in the '56 Widener Handicap. He didn't. A record 42,366 attended. Then again, 33 photographers captured him receiving the key to the city upon arrival.
"The most-publicized equine journey since Paul Revere," The New York Times reported.
An hour before that big race, an elderly woman went to Hialeah's security office, saying she wanted to buy a ticket on Nashua "before they're all gone." In the end, Nashua rewarded both novice and veteran bettors.
Wagering sometimes was an adventure at Hialeah, which began holding races six years before betting on the sport was legalized in Florida. Until then, you purchased "buying options" in a horse, and if he won, your stock paid dividends.
It's a quirky part of history in a track laden with it. On Jan. 15, 1925, the original track opened to a packed audience of 7,000, none of whom, it must be hoped, were in the infield. That was a snake pit. On good days, a full-time snake-catcher, known as Rattlesnake Pete, was said to collect 60 slithering specimens.
In bygone eras, Hialeah wasn't just for horses, but home to dog racing, a jai-alai fronton and a roller coaster. In its final years, the paddock area housed an aviary and aquarium.
"It was one of those places where all the old, great trainers got together," Nack says. "Woody Stephens and all the guys that had a long history. . . . LeRoy Jolley, they all loved Hialeah. It was their favorite place. Bill Hartack used to have a place, I think in Miami Springs Villas, and he used to have parties all the time. People told me every stewardess within five miles was at Bill Hartack's parties after the races."
As long ago as the mid-'70s, before Brunetti's arrival, speculation began that Hialeah could be in peril. Eventually, perception became reality as the railway ceased operation and drivers found Gulfstream and Calder more accessible. Brunetti also blames Hialeah's demise on rival tracks threatening horsemen with a loss of stalls if they ran at Hialeah.
The hurricanes did the rest of the damage, peeling back corrugated steel from the roof of the grandstand and blowing out windows. The remains of the barns were demolished years ago. The racing surface is so overgrown it's a challenge to discern the turf and dirt courses.
Walking through the grandstand is akin to touring the Titanic. To look beyond nature's wrath is to appreciate the finest in Mediterranean architecture. The iconic Citation statue remains, although its surrounding fountain is bone dry. The flamingos are still there, fed daily by Brunetti's staff.
MINUTES TO POST. That's what a sign near the mutuel windows says, wishfully, wistfully. Deep into May 22, 2001, it counted down, 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 to the race won by Cheeky Miss. Then it went dark. Brunetti knows part of his legacy is he's the one who turned out the lights.
"People say to me, 'How do you think they're going to treat you, John?''' he says. "You know what? I only hope that I'm gone by the time that they do it, so I don't have to read it, good or bad."
Picturing happier times isn't difficult.
"We pine over it," he says of himself and his staff. "I used to love on Saturdays, walking from one end to the other, seeing all the cars coming in.
"I could tell by how many cars were lined up by the second or third race how many people we had.''
Today, the driveways are vacant. There are no horses. No handicappers. Only gates locking people out and paradise lost in.
Says Brunetti: "I try to just close it out of my mind."
Big Brown already has done more than most Triple Crown winners.
At least, thats one way to look at his dominating victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Of course, looking at it that way requires a momentary emphasis on the quantity rather than the quality of his opposition. With his two wins, Big Brown has defeated a total of 30 horses in the first two races of the famed series. (That, of course, counts Gayego twice since he ran in both races.)
War Admiral defeated 32 starters to sweep the Triple Crown in 1937, and Assault beat 31 in 1946. Theyre the only two Triple Crown winners who defeated more starters, or horses, in the three races of the series than Big Brown already has beaten in the first two legs of it. (Sir Barton defeated 24 in 1919; Gallant Fox, 27 in 1930; Omaha, 29 in 1935; Whirlaway, 20 in 1941; Count Fleet, 14 in 1943; Citation, 15 in 1948; Secretariat, 21 in 1973; Seattle Slew, 29 in 1977; and Affirmed, 20 in 1978.)
Field size obviously has added greatly to the difficulty of sweeping the Triple Crown. More than ever, the Triple Crown, and especially the Kentucky Derby, has become the focus of the entire sport. The Breeders Cup folks like to point out that their event is the Super Bowl of horse racing, and it is, if by that they mean it determines championships. But in terms of getting the eye of the entire nation, intruding on the popular awareness and transfixing the attention of even the most casual fans, the sport has only the Triple Crown.
And so owners and breeders, at least those with the resources to support such lofty dreams and ambitions, aim for the Kentucky Derby from the instant they buy a horse or match a mare with a stallion. Early each year, people spend millions chasing after Triple Crown prospects. For many, just getting there is the goal, arriving there at Churchill Downs with a chance for glory and with an opportunity to share, however tangentially, in one of sports great events, to be close to one of its most magical and uplifting moments.
Thats why since 1978, the Kentucky Derby has averaged 17.2 starters. It has had 20 each of the last four years. Of course, this is a modern phenomenon. Modernity has more vanity than pride. Not long ago, it would have been embarrassing to start a horse with virtually no chance in the Derby. Having frightened away most of the competition, Citation defeated only five rivals in his Kentucky Derby. In fact, the 11 Kentucky Derbies that began the Triple Crown sweeps averaged 13.5 starters.
But for the 11 horses since 1978 who have won the first two races in the series, including Big Brown, the Kentucky Derby has averaged 16.5 starters. Their Preaknesses averaged 10.3 starters, compared to 7.9 for the Triple Crown winners. Of course, 10 of those horses failed to win their Belmont, which averaged in those years 9.4 starters, compared to 5.5 for the Belmonts of the Triple Crown winners.
Because of their reputations for invincibility, some Triple Crown winners apparently had a rather easy go of it after the Derby. Count Fleet defeated only three horses when he won the Preakness, and only two when he won the Belmont. Affirmeds Belmont had only five starters, and Whirlaways only four.
By the third race in the series, they had proven their dominance, and few stepped forward to take them on. But 10, I see, could line up against Big Brown at Belmont Park. He could sweep the series without having defeated a truly top horse, but if he succeeds on June 7 he will at least have beaten more horses than any other Triple Crown winner in history.
From Small Town to Big City, Desormeaux Comes Within Reach of Triple Crown
In front of an empty grandstand at Belmont Park, Kent Desormeaux spent Wednesday afternoon riding forgettable horses in forgettable races. There will be plenty of days like this between now and June 7, when Desormeaux and Big Brown tackle racings biggest challenge, completing the Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes.
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John Dunn for The New York Times
Kent Desormeaux, who revived his career in New York, will try to make history with Big Brown.
But even on a day when he failed to win in three tries, Desormeaux had no complaints. He loves riding, and he loves riding in New York.
This is my day job, and I love it, Desormeaux, 38, said between races. I amp up to ride. I love riding. Each and every day I show up here with the simple goal of wanting to win a race.
There was energy in his every step and passion in his voice, things that were hard to find when Desormeaux was struggling to win races in California earlier this decade. A Hall of Famer with a long list of accomplishments, including two Kentucky Derby victories and two Eclipse Awards as the nations outstanding jockey, Desormeaux was on the decline. For reasons he says he does not understand, he found himself having a hard time getting good mounts, and that affected his attitude. He was caught in a downward spiral from which he could not escape.
I wasnt getting good mounts and I wasnt winning, Desormeaux said. So I got sour, started sulking and getting upset. No one wants to be around someone who is sulking and upset. They want to be around someone who is happy. It just gets worse. I had to get away from it.
Always on the outlook for an opportunity, Desormeaux was successful during three stints in Japan, but he knew riding there was not a permanent solution. Wanting to build his business back up in the United States and seeking to establish roots somewhere, he came to New York two years ago.
The move turned his career around. New York trainers and owners were willing to give him a second chance. He is now riding regularly for some of the top trainers in New York, like Bill Mott, and for some of the sports leading owners. Led by Big Brown, Desormeauxs mounts have earned nearly $7 million this year, good for second place behind Garrett Gomez as the top-earning jockey in the nation.
Coming to New York has to be the reason, Desormeaux said of his resurgence. If I dont come to New York, I dont find Big Brown. If I dont come to New York, Im not riding for Zayat Stable and Bill Mott. Riding for them has encouraged everyone else in the East to support me. The three things a big horse, a big stable and a big owner I wouldnt have any of them if I had stayed on the West Coast.
From Maurice, La. (population 642), Desormeaux would seem to be out of place in New York, but he has embraced living here. He has a home in Garden City on Long Island and is a frequent visitor to Manhattan.
I love it here, he said. If youve never been on vacation here, youve got to go to Manhattan. Youll leave the place so charged. Theres so much energy there. Now, its only 30 minutes away. If I ever feel like I need a little pick-up, I get on the train and head to Manhattan, and by the time I leave that place, I am dreaming again, Ive got goals again. I go there, and I get recharged.
He is able to head into Manhattan on Mondays and Tuesdays, dark days at the New York tracks. The rest of the week is for business, even if that means slogging through races that do not offer much excitement or reward.
It may seem mundane or anticlimactic, but its the only way to keep getting the good horses, he said. You have to show up here every day and ride the hair off the $35,000 claimer.
That impresses trainers, who want someone who tries hard every day and has the skills to win consistently. That is what Desormeaux has done since he came here, and that is why someone like Big Browns trainer, Rick Dutrow, knows he can count on him. Dutrow gives him good mounts, and Desormeaux delivers good rides, just as he did in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
All that is left now is the Belmont Stakes, New Yorks biggest racing event and the type of race that makes it all worthwhile. Desormeaux can already sense what winning will feel like.
I think Ill be like a beacon of light, he said. Honestly, Ill be overwhelmed with joy.
On Sunday, it was revealed that unbeaten Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness S. (G1) winner BIG BROWN (Boundary) has developed a "slight" quarter-crack on the inside of his front left hoof, but trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. said he was confident the horse will be "100 percent" when he goes for the Triple Crown in the 140th running of Belmont S. (G1) on June 7.
"We didn't know until Saturday that it was a quarter-crack," explained Dutrow, who said he first noticed an issue with the colt's hoof Friday afternoon. "It scares us this happened, but this has nothing to do with his ability to finish what he started.
"It's bad it happened, but it's good it happened now. He's going to be OK."
Big Brown remained in his barn Saturday and Sunday under the care of hoof specialist Ian McKinlay.
"This is a very, very minor crack," said McKinlay, who added that the crack was about five-eighths of an inch long. "We will put a set of wires in and patch it up."
Big Brown has suffered from foot problems before, but Dutrow said it was the first time he has developed a quarter-crack, which is a vertical crack in the hoof wall between the toe and heel of the hoof. Big Brown's hoof is currently being treated with a solution of iodine and alcohol and will be patched Monday with a set of wires and mesh, McKinlay said.
"The horse is doing fine, he's eating up, he's walking the shedrow two times a day," Dutrow said. "If the race was today, or yesterday, or tomorrow, it would not be an issue. Because we have the time we've addressed the issue the right way."
Dutrow said plans were going forward for Big Brown to breeze Saturday as he prepares for the 1 1/2-mile Belmont, in which he is attempting to become just the 12th horse, and the first in 30 years, to win the Triple Crown.
"Ian keeps telling me it's nothing and he'll be fine in a couple of days, that he will be able to fix it up by Thursday," Dutrow said. "I am sure he will be 100 percent, yes. If we get to breeze him Tuesday of Belmont week, or even Wednesday, we can live with that. Monday would be great, as long as Ian can get it done the right way."
Dutrow said the horse was perfectly comfortable and in fact was "bossing people around" in the barn.
"He's been as aggressive as I've seen him," said Dutrow of Big Brown, who has been walking the shedrow twice a day for 30 minutes at a time. "He's really been rank in the afternoon."
Big Brown's chief Belmont antagonist, Peter Pan S. (G2) winner CASINO DRIVE (Mineshaft), put in a brisk canter Sunday morning and Nobutaka Tada, racing manager for owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto, said the colt will have a serious move on Wednesday as he tries to follow in the footsteps of siblings Rags to Riches (A.P. Indy) and Jazil (Seeking the Gold), winners of the past two Belmonts.
Also on Wednesday, a rider will be named, according to Tada.
"We really appreciate how many good jockeys are interested in our horse," Tada said. "We need the right rider for the Belmont Stakes, whether it be Japanese, American, or European."
Leading candidates to ride Casino Drive are Yutaka Take, Edgar Prado and Garrett Gomez.
In other Belmont news:
Wood Memorial S. (G1) hero TALE OF EKATI (Tale of the Cat), fourth behind Big Brown in the Derby, is scheduled to have his penultimate breeze for the Belmont Monday morning, trainer Barclay Tagg said.
"He's bred well enough to handle the distance," Tagg noted. "He's a pretty nice horse. He's swift, he's tenacious, he's got a lot of courage, and he keeps on trying. If that's not a Belmont horse, I don't know what is."
That being said, Tagg had nothing but praise for the Belmont favorite, Triple Crown hopeful Big Brown.
"He's a heck of a horse and Rick (Dutrow) has done a heck of a job with him," Tagg said.
Also planning to work on Monday is Southwest S. (G3) victor DENIS OF CORK (Harlan's Holiday), who was last seen finishing third to Big Brown in the Run for the Roses. The blaze-faced bay, based with trainer David Carroll at Churchill Downs, is scheduled to breeze after the midsession break for track maintenance, which would put Denis of Cork on the track at around 8:20 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. (EDT).
Jockey Robby Albarado will be in the saddle for the work. Albarado, who rode Denis of Cork to victory in the Southwest, will renew their partnership in the Belmont. Calvin Borel had been aboard Denis of Cork in the Kentucky Derby.
Peruvian superstar TOMCITO (Street Cry [Ire]), who underwent a myectomy to correct a breathing problem after his seventh-place finish in the Peter Pan on May 10, remains day-to-day for the Belmont, according to trainer Dante Zanelli.
"So far he's doing OK," Zanelli said. "He galloped a mile and three-quarters this morning, went well, finished well. We need to see him continue to move forward."
Zanelli said the colt could breeze at Belmont this weekend, at which time a decision would be made.
According to New York Racing Association Stakes coordinator Andrew Byrnes, other probables for the Belmont include MACHO AGAIN (Macho Uno), ICABAD CRANE (Jump Start) and ANAK NAKAL (Victory Gallop). A decision on the Todd Pletcher-trained duo of READY'S ECHO (More Than Ready) and BEHINDATTHEBAR (Forest Wildcat) will be made by Monday, Byrnes said, and one on Casino Drive's stablemate, SPARK CANDLE (A.P. Indy), would be made later.
Gomez replaces Leparoux on Macho Again
Preakness S. (G1) runner-up MACHO AGAIN (Macho Uno) will have a new rider in his expected rematch with unbeaten Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness winner BIG BROWN (Boundary) in the $1 million Belmont S. (G1) on June 7 at Belmont Park.
Garrett Gomez, the Eclipse Award winner as America's top jockey in 2007, has been named to replace Julien Leparoux aboard the three-year-old in the 1 1/2-mile final jewel of the Triple Crown.
Trainer Dallas Stewart said the decision by West Point Thoroughbreds to give the mount to Gomez should not reflect negatively on Leparoux, who had ridden Macho Again in four of his last five races and had won two of those.
"Julien has done a great job with him," Stewart said. "But after talking with (West Point Thoroughbreds' managing partner) Terry Finley and the owners, it was a decision based more on a 'home court advantage' for the rider. Gomez is a New York rider and he knows that mile-and-a-half track. That's not taking anything away from Julien or anything, but Gomez rides there every day and he's going to ride a bunch on the card.
"We're going up there trying to win it, not that we think we couldn't win it with Julien," Stewart added. "Terry just felt that it would give us a little bit of an edge to have someone that rides there every day."
Gomez leads the nation's riders with more than $7.4 million in earnings on the year.
Macho Again will enter the Belmont with a career record of 9-3-3-0 and earnings of $343,761. He captured the April 26 Derby Trial S. at Churchill Downs prior to finishing second in the Preakness.
In other Belmont news:
Trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. will meet with the media on Sunday at 11 a.m. (EDT) in Barn 2 to discuss Big Brown's bid to become the 12th Triple Crown winner in the Belmont.
Also scheduled to meet with the press is Nobutaka Tada, managing director for Globe Equine Management Ltd. and spokesperson for the connections of Belmont hopeful CASINO DRIVE (Mineshaft), who captured the Peter Pan S. (G2) recently. Tada's meeting will take place in the Belmont Caf? at approximately 8:15 a.m.
Tada announced Saturday that Casino Drive will have a strong gallop around 7 a.m. Sunday, weather permitting, with his serious workout coming on Wednesday. A decision on the chestnut's rider in the Belmont has been pushed back until Wednesday as well.
Casino Drive to Get Serious Wednesday. Peter Pan winner Casino Drive put in a brisk canter this morning. Nobutaka Tada, racing manager for owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto, said the colt will have a serious workout on Wednesday as he tries to follow in the footsteps of siblings Rags to Riches and Jazil, winners of the past two Belmont Stakes.
Also Wednesday, said Tada, a rider will be named.
We really appreciate how many good jockeys are interested in our horse, said Tada. We need the right rider for the Belmont Stakes, whether it be Japanese, American, or European.
Leading candidates to ride Casino Drive are Yutaka Take and Edgar Prado. Garrett Gomez had been mentioned, but he's taken the mount on rival Macho Again.
Tomcito Day-to-Day. Tomcito, who underwent a myectomy to correct a breathing problem after his seventh-place finish in the Peter Pan on May 10, remains day-to-day for the Belmont Stakes, said trainer Dante Zanelli.
So far hes doing OK, said Zanelli. He galloped a mile and three-quarters this morning, went well, finished well. We need to see him continue to move forward.
Zanelli said the colt would breeze soon, after which a decision would be made.
Asmussen and Big Brown
Steve Asmussen said he was offended. And he doesnt offend easily.
Richard Dutrow Jr., the trainer of Big Brown, recently said in The Daily Racing Form that if the Kentucky Derby-Preakness winner meets Curlin, the reigning Horse of the Year, in the Breeders Cup Classic, their confrontation would be good for racing. But, Dutrow said, it wouldnt be so good for Curlin.
Asmussen, who, of course, trains Curlin, said he doubts Dutrows sincerity in making such comments. Dutrow has identified three possible races in Big Browns future the Belmont, Travers and Classic. Two of them are restricted to 3-year-olds; the other, the Classic, could be run on a synthetic surface at Santa Anita. A confrontation there would hardly be conclusive. Still, Asmussen said hes eager to take on Big Brown with Curlin.
First, we both have to take care of business, he said, referring to Big Browns upcoming start in the Belmont and Curlins in the Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs. After that, there are some great possibilities.
It would be great for racing, he continued, referring to a Curlin-Big Brown meeting, and Id love to be part of it. But I dont want to talk about it, and I dont want to hear a lot of worthless opinions about it. The proof is on the racetrack. I just want to beat him.
I was waiting in the chow line inside the Pimlico Racecourse press box on Preakness Day and overheard a conversation between two veteran and highly reputable horse-racing writers.
If he wins the Preakness, do you want him to win the Triple Crown? the one asked the other. No, the other answered.
And it has nothing to do with Big Brown. It very much has to do with some of the people surrounding him. Lets start with his outspoken trainer, Rick Dutrow.
Dutrow has a checkered past, not unlike many in life. So, that may not be as much of the issue as the comments he has made about Big Brown that border on arrogant.
And then, during a press conference, he addressed a revelation he made during NBCs pre-Preakness broadcast that all of his horses are injected monthly with the steroid Winstrol, according to a story that appeared on bloodhorse.com.
But the comment that has me scratching my head and wondering, at least a little bit about this guy, is that he doesnt really know what Winstrol does.
Wait a second. All your horses are injected with a steroid, which is still legal in New York where Dutrows horses are stabled, according to the bloodhorse.com story, and you dont know what it does to a horse?
Dutrow explained, in the bloodhorse.com story, that he knew Winstrol brightened a horses coat and sometimes increased appetite. Other than that, he didnt know and got a bit indignant after that, saying that people should be discussing the drug with veterinarians and New York racing officials and that he shouldnt be asked such questions.
He also again said that he had no idea what the drug was used for.
I can tell you a couple things from information that Ive compiled. First, any trainer worth a grain of salt would have a vet explain to them what a drug was all about before they allowed their horse to be injected.
Second, Winstrol is an anabolic steroid that is considered a very effective muscle enhancer for humans on a few Websites that I can best describe as being dedicated to how to dramatically increase muscle mass through steroids.
Third, Dutrow was accurate when he said that horses are given it to help with their appetites. But usually only when it is an issue.
Then there are issues surrounding International Equine Acquisitions Holdings, or IEAH, which owns 75 percent of Big Brown. Too many to get into within the space of this one column.
But the issues, according to what I have read on Websites, include very limited information on the 11-year Wall Street career that co-CEO Mark Iavorone claims, as well as the disgraced and criminal practices of their first trainer, who pleaded guilty to charges surrounding his partaking in a prohibited procedure known as milkshaking to an IEAH horse prior to running in a race it won.
These things certainly can make people cynical and the real victim is a very talented horse that has done nothing wrong.
Hopefully, those around him havent done anything wrong with him during this quest for the Triple Crown.
McKinlay Effects Repair on Big Brown. Big Brown's quarter crack underwent a repair this morning at Belmont Park.
Trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. and hoof specialist Ian McKinlay said they are pleased with the progress Kentucky Derby/Preakness winner Big Brown showed today and that he remains on schedule for the Belmont Stakes on June 7.
This morning, we stopped and saw him early and a lot of heat had come out from yesterday, which is an excellent sign, McKinlay said. As usual, just a little bit of movement in that heel is enough to warm up the foot. As we look at him here, he is not as sensitive on the coronet band. Now, we just basically made a little trench and got him down to the wall, just about to the laminae; thats the sensitive part of the hoof. And we put in one set of sutures, which is like stitches, made of stainless steel wire, and we drew that crack together. And probably tomorrow, hell be in much better shape.
Of course, Rick will check him first thing in the morning," McKinlay said. "Im actually going to be at Monmouth, but everything should just keep progressing. What were trying to do is stabilize that heel so we can get quicker healing.
Big Brown was scheduled to put in a serious breeze on Saturday morning. Dutrow said that could be moved to Monday or Tuesday, but would not be made any earlier.
We can most likely jog him (tomorrow), but I dont want to do that, Dutrow said. I want Ian to look at him again before we actually go to the track. If he looks great tomorrow, I still wont jog him. I most likely will put Michelle (Nevin, exercise rider) on him and ride him around the shedrow. And I would be very happy if that happens. Its a little hiccup on the way over there, thats all it is. The time he has missed means nothing to me or him.
This could also be a very good thing because he burnt his heels (at Pimlico) and it gives him time to get over that. No way missing four, five or six days is going to affect the outcome and his racing ability when he runs.
McKinlay will follow up with Big Brown on Wednesday. "What we're trying to do is stabilize that heel so you get quicker healing," said McKinlay. "We've done what we can right now and it might be 48 hours before we see the full results in stabilizing the quarter. Once we know everything's under control, that stitch will be taken out, we'll clean up the whole area, replace the stitch, snug that crack back up, and cover it with a methacrylate adhesive."
Denis of Cork, Tale of Ekati, Ready's Echo, Anak Nakal Work. Denis of Cork, third to Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands, worked out this morning at at Churchill Downs. He breezed five furlongs in :59.80 (3/21). Denis of Cork galloped out six furlongs in 1:13.
Robby Albarado, who'll ride Denis of Cork in the Belmont Stakes, was in the saddle for the work. Calvin Borel rode Denis of Cork in the Derby.
Hes training beautifully, said Carroll. For two weeks after the Derby it just took him a little bit of time to get back on his feet and get his energy back, but the last week hes training beautifully. He had a good work last week, but this week we wanted a bit more from him. I just told Robby to let him go off twelves and let him finish up and gallop out, and he did everything beautifully.
Denis of Cork won the first three races of his career, including the Grade III Southwest Stakes, before he suffered his first setback in a fifth-place finish in the Grade II Illinois Derby. He rebounded from that disappointment with his strong run in the Kentucky Derby, when Borel took him from post 16 straight to the rail. In twentieth position early, the colt passed 17 horses to finish third, beaten 8 1/4 lengths.
Today's workout was the second work for Denis of Cork at Churchill Downs since the Kentucky Derby. He breezed five furlongs in 1:01 (5/31) on May 19 with jockey James Lopez in the irons.
He went really well, I thought it was a great work for him, said Albarado. It was a nice, long maintenance work. He went fast, too, and was within himself. Im excited about him and it sets him up great for the Belmont.
"Hes matured a lot and gotten a lot stronger. He must have a big set of lungs on him because he gallops out really well and he refuses to pull-up," Albarado said. "I mean he just wants to keep going and going. So I think the mile-and-a-half is going to be conducive to his style.
Well probably breeze him again on Sunday or Monday and then ship to Belmont, Carroll said. Hes a very steady type of horse. Hes not going to blow you away, but he is going to go about his business.
Asked if he had any reaction to the news about Big Brown, Carroll said: As long as its not Denis of Cork with a quarter crack, I really dont care. Seriously, that is something we all have had to deal with at one time or another. Fortunately, Big Brown is in excellent hands. Ian McKinlay is the best, and Ive known him for a long time. Im sure Big Brown will be okay, but I have enough to worry about with my own horse.
"Its a totally new dimension at a mile-and-a-half and a new set of fresh horses going at him," Carroll said. Im not going to count Denis of Cork out. Weve got a big chance and Im going to ride him with a chance.
Tale of Ekati was right on schedule--but not on target--for trainer Barclay Tagg today at Belmont Park, breezing six furlongs under Eibar Coa on the main track in 1:18.80 (1/3) on a track rated fast, but which was a little dull.
The work was decidedly different than the one Tale of Ekati had six days ago, when he went four furlongs in :46.80 (1/37), handily.
Tagg was far from happy with Tale of Ekatis workout. Two works before a Classic race, Tagg muttered, and this is not what I wanted. Its no wonder Im always in bad mood.
Tale of Ekati was set to put in his final Belmont Stakes work on Sunday. Stay tuned. Tagg said he didnt know what his plans would be now for the winner of Aqueducts Grade I Wood Memorial, who was fourth in the Kentucky Derby.
Ready's Echo, who's been listed as possible for the Belmont Stakes, breezed a liesurely four furlongs this morning for trainer Todd Pletcher at Big Sandy. He was sent out to the inner turf course, which was rated firm, for the move. He was timed in :51.00 (1/2).
Pletcher will make a decision on whether Ready's Echo and/or Behindatthebar will run in the Belmont Stakes shortly.
Also today, Anak Nakal worked four furlongs in a bullet :48.60 (1/14) at Saratoga's Oklahoma training track. It was the second work for Anak Nakal since his seventh-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. On May 18, trainer Nick Zito had Anak Nakal put in a similar move--four furlongs on the training track in :49.80 (6/21).
Big Brown Galloping Now. Big Brown appeared well on his way back from treatment for a quarter crack today, galloping 1 ½ mile under exercise rider Michelle Nevin at Belmont Park.
However, farrier Ian McKinlay was on hand with cautious words. Obviously were being cautious, but he is right on track, McKinlay said. He is not quick healer, as he has shown with his other injuries. Still, McKinlay said Big Browns hoof is improving.
Right now, everything is healing naturally, which is what you want to see, McKinlay said. There is a bit of a hole there, which is the best case scenario. The foot is cleaned out, and both feet had the same temperature, which is what you want to see. When one is warmer than the other is when you have a problem. The skin is drying right out and the horse seems fabulous.
The quarter crack, which was closed with a stainless steel suture on Monday, will be patched. McKinlay didnt say when that would be done but indicated that the procedure would take place close enough to the Belmont Stakes to maximize the chance it will stay in place up to and through the race.
Whats Up with Casino Drive? Todays workout for Casino Drive, planned since he won the Grade II Peter Pan on May 10, was a waterhaul by American standards, but maybe not according to methods employed by his Japanese connections.
Weve never seen anything quite like this. Fractional times for the five-furlong move were :17, :31 1/5, :45 4/5 and 1:12 2/5. Clockers said he galloped out six-furlongs in 1:25as it he were not galloping the whole way in the first place.
The time was so slow that its not being published as an official workout.
Predictably, Nobutaka Tada, racing manager for owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto, said he was OK with the move. We had him continue past the wire to the backstretch to the one-mile pole, Tada said. I know the clocking may not please everyone, but it was exactly what we wanted. The way he moved was very good, and his breath was really good after the work.
A comparable work may come this Sunday, or connections could opt to wait a week and try a more conventional workout.
At this post, an announcement about a Belmont Stakes jockey for Casino Drive is still pending.
Tomcito Works. Tomcito breezed seven furlongs this morning, timed in 1:29.80 (1/1) at Belmont. It was his first workout since a seventh-place finish in the Grade II Peter Pan Stakes on May 10 and a subsequent myectomy, performed to try to treat a breathing problem.
A final decision on whether Tomcitos connections will enter him in the Belmont Stakes is pending
Comments
By GARY WESTStar-Telegram staff writer
THE (BALTIMORE) SUN/GENE SWEENEY JR. VIA MCT
There was no challenge for Big Brown and jockey Kent Desormeaux in the run to the Preakness wire.
Kent Desormeaux might have won the Triple Crown in an unlikely place, the final sixteenth of a mile at Pimlico.
That's where the jockey, with a firm hold of the reins, took Big Brown in hand and downshifted. Saturday's Preakness was already won and the vanquished competition, if it can be called that, already retreating. And so Desormeaux saved a little something for the Belmont Stakes, the finale to sport's most famous triptych.
Since 1978, when Affirmed became the 11th Triple Crown winner, 17 horses have won two-thirds of the series. And 10 of those went to New York with a chance to become the 12th Triple Crown winner, but they all failed.
And some had been as dominant as Big Brown, who won Saturday by 5 1/4 lengths. Smarty Jones won the Preakness by 11 1/2 lengths, but Birdstone finally caught up with him at Belmont Park. Funny Cide won the Preakness by nearly 10 lengths, but he couldn't resist Empire Maker in New York.
With fresh horses joining the fray at every turn, at three distinctly different racetracks, with only two and then three weeks between races, sweeping the Triple Crown series might be one of the most difficult challenges in sports.
Few horses have even hit the Preakness-Belmont double. Since Affirmed, only five horses have won both the Preakness and the Belmont (Risen Star, Hansel, Tabasco Cat, Point Given and Afleet Alex).
But Big Brown has two advantages the others didn't, two things going for him that could make him the most likely horse to win the Triple Crown since Spectacular Bid in 1979: (1) A lack of competition and (2) that final sixteenth of a mile at Pimlico.
Big Brown now has won his five races by a total of 39 lengths. Nobody in the 3-year-old division is even close to him. And his victory Saturday at Pimlico was even more impressive than his win two weeks ago at Churchill Downs in the Kentucky Derby. At Pimlico, he answered every question.
He rated behind Gayego, the early leader. On the backstretch, when Riley Tucker advanced to his outside, Desormeaux momentarily had to check his progress to avoid being trapped in a box. He moved the big colt to the outside, and the race was over. Nothing to it.
Among his rivals, there doesn't seem to be a Birdstone or an Empire Maker. And for certain, in Big Brown's future there's no Easy Goer, who derailed Sunday Silence's Triple Crown bid in 1989.
In the Belmont, he could meet Denis of Cork and Tale of Ekati, who both finished far back in the Kentucky Derby. But the biggest threat to a Big Brown sweep could be Casino Drive, who has raced only twice, winning the Peter Pan Stakes in his American debut.
And that, along with a few very long shots to round out the field, could be it. No horse such as Coastal, Lemon Drop Kid, Victory Gallop or Touch Gold will challenge Big Brown at Belmont.
But that final sixteenth of a mile at Pimlico could be the very thing that enables Big Brown to extend his talent to the 1 1/2 miles of the Belmont. Last year, Curlin got up in the final strides, fully extended, to beat Street Sense in the Preakness, completing the 1 3/16 miles in 1:53.46. Three weeks later, Curlin couldn't quite get by Rags to Riches, Casino Drive's big sister, in the Belmont.
But Big Brown wasn't fully extended. He won the Preakness in 1:54.80 without ever feeling the whip. Nobody threatened him in the stretch; nobody could run with him. Desormeaux called on Big Brown at the top of the Pimlico stretch, the big horse sprinted clear in a blink, and then the jockey took his hold, depositing the balance of Big Brown's energy in the bank, to be withdrawn on June 7 at Belmont Park.
In 1979, on the morning of the Belmont, Spectacular Bid stepped on a pin, according to his trainer, Bud Delp, and that presumably compromised the gray colt's performance when he lost to Coastal. Barring a similar fluke, a pin or a lightning bolt, Big Brown is the most likely Triple Crown winner the sport has seen in many years.
Desormeaux hopes to seal the deal at the Belmont Stakes on June 7.
BALTIMORE - Big Brown had the good fortune to be born in what is considered a lackluster foal crop. Then again, the same thing was said about Seattle Slew. Seattle Slew merely went on to become racing's only unbeaten Triple Crown winner, something Big Brown will try to emulate in the June 7 Belmont Stakes.
If the company Big Brown keeps isn't as memorable as Affirmed's stubborn rival Alydar, that plays in his favor. In his five career starts, the horse that's finished closest to him was a filly - the ill-fated Eight Belles, who was 4-3/4 lengths behind him in the Kentucky Derby. Unlike last year, there weren't any Curlins or Street Senses or Hard Spuns to burn out Big Brown in the first two legs of the Triple Crown, and his trainer Rick Dutrow doesn't see many potential threats among the 3-year-olds he has yet to compete against.
While he delightedly watched Big Brown drag exercise rider Michelle Nevin around his Pimlico shedrow Sunday morning - the colt showing no signs of fatigue after his 5-1/4-length win in Saturday's Preakness - Dutrow showed respect for only a few of his unbeaten horse's peers.
"Todd's horse is running in the Canada race," Dutrow said of Harlem Rocker, the Pletcher trainee who is headed for the Queen's Plate on June 22. "Kiaran McLaughlin has Lieutenant Ron, who looks like he's a really, really nice horse, but he's on the sidelines now (with a bruised foot).
"And this horse that came in from Japan," he said. "Those are the only three horses that I've seen that Big Brown would have to run against to show he's better than them. All the rest of them, I haven't seen anything that's in the same game as those three horses. Nothing."
Only that last horse mentioned by Dutrow, Casino Drive, will add intrigue to Big Brown's attempt to become the 12th Triple Crown winner in thoroughbred racing history. Normally, a horse with two career starts who began his career in Japan and is owned, trained and potentially will be ridden by Japanese connections would be dismissed with several sushi jokes.
Casino Drive, though, is equine royalty. His dam is named Better Than Honour. Two years ago, her son, Jazil (by Seeking the Gold), won the Belmont. Last year, her daughter, Rags to Riches (by A.P. Indy), won the Belmont. On June 7, Casino Drive will try to give his mama her own personal triple.
Sired by Horse of the Year Mineshaft, Casino Drive shipped to New York this spring with the third jewel of the Triple Crown as his target after an 11-1/2-length maiden win in Japan in February. He won the Peter Pan (Grade II) at Belmont on May 10, ridden to a 5-3/4-length victory by Kent Desormeaux, who will be otherwise engaged on Belmont Stakes afternoon. He is the regular pilot of Big Brown.
"I can certainly understand how Jazil and Rags to Riches won the Belmont," Desormeaux said after the Peter Pan. "He's a phenomenal talent, and we've got our hands full with this one."
Casino Drive's camp may be looking for a North American rider for the Belmont, although Yutaka Take, who rode the colt in Japan, currently has the assignment.
"Big Brown was amazing (Saturday), most impressive," said Nobutaka Tada, the managing director of Globe Equine Management Ltd., and the spokesman for owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto and trainer Kazuo Fujisawa. "But the Belmont Stakes is the reason we are here, and Casino Drive loves it here."
Other possibles for the Belmont are Macho Again and Icabad Crane, second and third, respectively, behind Big Brown in the Preakness; Anak Nakal, trained by Nick Zito, who stymied the last Triple Crown bid by Smarty Jones in 2004 with Birdstone; Denis of Cork and Tale of Ekati, third and fourth, respectively, in the Kentucky Derby; and Tomcito, a distant third to Big Brown in the Florida Derby.
Monday, May 19, 2008
By Phil Janack (Contact)
Gazette Reporter
Text Size: A | A | A
Working on only a few hours sleep, Rick Dutrow Jr. sat with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cell phone in the other early Sunday morning.
Leaning on a wooden rail at the Pimlico Race Course stakes barn, next to the blanket of Black-Eyed Susans that Big Brown had earned the night before, Dutrow gazed over at the big bay colt who stuck his head out of stall 34.
I couldnt stay home. As soon as I woke up, I wanted to come out, Dutrow said. Im very excited about whats coming up, and very happy about what we just did.
Everybody wants to see something great. Maybe were going to see that, you know? Itll be a lot of fun.
His resounding victory in the 133rd Preakness, two weeks after thumping the competition in the Kentucky Derby, has put Big Brown on a collision course with history.
On June 7, before what is likely to be a record six-figure crowd at cavernous Belmont Park, Big Brown has the chance to become horse racings 12th Triple Crown winner and first since Affirmed in 1978.
Now 5-0 lifetime, Big Brown can join Seattle Slew as the only
undefeated Triple Crown winners.
Certainly, he can, Dutrow said. If he comes out of this good and trains good, Im not going to see a problem. Were this close to getting it done. Were going to hope that we wind up with a Triple Crown.
Once out of his stall, Big Brown was energetic and playful as reg*ular exercise rider Michelle Nevin
walked him around a deserted shedrow Sunday. Big Brown will spend one more night in Baltimore before leaving for Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankels barn at Belmont Park at 10 this morning.
Look at him, Dutrow said. Wow. I love that. It looks like hes ready.
After overcoming inexperience and the 20 post to win the Derby, Big Brown faced a new set of questions in the Preakness. The 14-day turnaround was the quickest of his career. Rather than being on the outside, where he also won the Florida Derby March 29, Big Brown broke from the middle of 12 horses, and in the early stages of the race, found himself briefly pinned in on the rail by long shot Riley Tucker.
Jockey Kent Desormeaux had enough time and room to steer Big Brown clear, powering to the lead at the top of the stretch and sprinting clear, hitting the wire
51⁄4 lengths in front.
Yesterday, we saw a new part of him, Dutrow said. He was down on the inside, there was a horse in front of him and a horse on the outside of him. I think it was the toughest scenario that hes been in. It could have got ugly there. This horse is going to adapt to anything, man.
The next task is the 11⁄2-mile Belmont, the last and longest leg of the Triple Crown. There could be as many as eight rivals waiting for Big Brown in New York, none with more buzz than Kentucky-bred Japanese import Casino Drive, an impressive winner of the Grade II Peter Pan May 10.
The Belmont would be the third career race for Casino Drive, who broke his maiden Feb. 23 in Japan.
Hes got a lot of talent. They think they have a really, really nice horse, which they do, and theyre going after the gut, right now. Wed probably be doing the same thing, Dutrow said. Id like to have the horse, but I dont see him beating Big Brown. I just dont see that.
Of the current 3-year-old crop, Dutrow feels Casino Drive, unbeaten Harlem Rocker and Lieutenant Ron may be the only ones to give Big Brown a challenge. Harlem Rocker, trained by Todd Pletcher, is skipping the Belmont for Canadas Triple Crown series, and Lieutenant Ron, 2-for-2 with a pair of sprint wins for trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, had a foot injury that kept him out of the Peter Pan.
Those are the only three horses that Ive seen that Big Brown would have to run against to show that hes better than them, Dutrow said. All the rest of them, I havent seen anything thats in the same game as those three horses. Nothing. And I dont really want to.
Also eyeing the Belmont are graded-stakes winners Denis of Cork, Anak Nakal and Tale of Ekati, who ran third, fourth and seventh, respectively, in the Derby; Group 1 winner Tomcito, seventh in the
Peter Pan; and New York-bred Icabad Crane, third in the Preakness.
Pletcher trains both Behindatthebar, knocked from the Preakness with a foot bruise, and Readys Echo, third in the Peter Pan, and hasnt ruled them out of the Belmont. Roman Emperor, winner of the Barbaro on the Preakness
undercard who ran in all four of New Yorks Triple Crown prep races, is another possibility.
New York Racing Association president and CEO Charlie Hayward feels New Yorkers will come out in full force to support one of their own in Big Brown. The biggest Belmont crowd was 120,139 for Smarty Jones Triple Crown bid in 2004.
We could probably set a rec*ord, Hayward said. This horse is pretty special. Were thrilled. Its very exciting.
Earlier in the week, Dutrow expressed a desire to let Big Brown finish out his 3-year-old season rather than go straight to the breeding shed. A reported $50 million deal to stand at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky., was announced on Preakness day.
On Sunday, Dutrow repeated a desire to keep Big Brown running, including the Grade I Travers, the premiere event of the Saratoga Race Course summer, as well as the Breeders Cup Classic and a date with 2007 Horse of the Year Curlin.
If everything is beautiful with the horse, and the owners still want to race him, I only see the Travers and the Breeders Cup, Dutrow said. I dont know what else anybody would want to do.
Ten horses since Affirmed have lost the Triple Crown in the Belmont, six of them since 1997. With three weeks to recover, Dutrow remains confident that Big Brown can end that streak.
Everybodys going to find out where he belongs. If he wins this next race, hes going to be up there with every great horse thats ever run, he said. When theyre talking about him, hell be in the same breath as Secretariat and Affirmed, and all those great horses. This may be one of the best horses that ever lived.
Horses are not machines. At least, they are not supposed to be. The late track announcer Chic Anderson described Secretariat as "this tremendous machine" as the legendary colt opened up a 20-length lead turning for home in the 1973 Belmont Stakes on the way to the first Triple Crown in 25 years. Nobody argued with Anderson's description. At this moment, after five races and five wins by a combined 39 lengths, 7.8 lengths per race, machine seems like the only appropriate description for Big Brown, a Belmont Stakes victory away from being the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years.
Big Brown did not beat the average in the Preakness, but that really wasn't the point. When the field reached the far turn, two horses were just in front and to the inside of Big Brown. Desormeaux looked under his right arm to see if anything was moving behind him. That was the signal the rider knew the horses in front of him were no threat.
At the instant Big Brown's body was straight in the stretch, the rider moved his hands forward and gave the signal. In maybe 10 strides, Big Brown went from even to 5 lengths in front. You can watch thousands of horse races and never see a horse separate so fast and so far in such little time.
"I kissed at him," Desormeaux said. "I tapped him on the shoulder. He just took off. He's got some turn of foot."
It is about 350 yards from the top of the Pimlico stretch to the finish line. The rider let off the accelerator more than 100 yards from the finish line. The second, third and fourth horses, straining on every stride, were separated by barely more than 1 length. The second horse, Macho Again, owned by Terry Finley's West Point Thoroughbreds, based in Mt. Laurel, ran the race of his life. And was separated from Big Brown by 5 1/4 lengths.
The big colt has raced against 54 horses in five races and beaten them all soundly, 39 lengths of air between them. In his last three races, all Grade I stakes, he won from the 12 post in the Florida Derby, which was supposed to be impossible; the 20 post in the Kentucky Derby, which was equally impossible; and now the Preakness with complete ease, proving that, with Big Brown, impossible may not apply.
"I'm thankful that I've been blessed with these beautiful people and freak of a horse," Desormeaux said. "It was just the easiest win ever."
So on to Belmont Park, where Big Brown will train for the June 7 Belmont Stakes. The colts that finished third and fourth in the Derby, Denis of Cork and Tale of Ekati, will be there after passing up the Preakness. Casino Drive, the Japanese owned and trained colt so impressive in winning the May 10 Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont, will be there. Big Brown will most definitely be there.
The colt's trainer, Rick Dutrow, so confident in Kentucky and, by post time, equally confident at Pimlico, did not sound concerned by any horse or any scenario.
When asked about the Belmont exacta, Desormeaux, who rode Casino Drive in the Peter Pan, said it was a cold exacta.
Cold or boxed?
"I don't know," Desormeaux said.
Dutrow did not equivocate.
"It's cold, babe," he said before starting to laugh.
Back at the stakes barn, Dutrow just kept laughing. And why not? He trains a machine in a sport where even the very best horses rarely hold their form for long. To this point, Big Brown seems to be the exception to all the horse racing rules.
"I was not surprised that he won so easy because I know we have a good horse, and I know he was running a race where they didn't have good horses running," said Dutrow, who was not lying on either count.
Casino Drive?
"Well, I would like to have him, number one," Dutrow said. "He looks like a nice horse. Number two, I believe that he can't beat our horse. So all Japanese people are going to think when they come here that they thought Godzilla was dead. They're going to find out he's not dead, he's here."
Politically incorrect all the way to end, Dutrow offended a state when he basically said the Derby looked like just any other race to him. Now he's after a country. With Big Brown in the barn, it sort of releases your inhibitions, not that Dutrow has ever had any.
Since Affirmed last won the Triple Crown in 1978, 10 horses have gone to Belmont Park with a chance. Eleven horses have won the Triple Crown. Maybe the stars and the numbers are aligned this time.
We all know what we have seen this spring, but the sport makes you cautious. Certainly, Smarty Jones looked like a cinch 4 years ago. In this game, nothing is ever certain.
What we do know is that we should savor Big Brown. He will be gone to Three Chimneys Farm by the end of the year, joining Smarty and Dynaformer, Barbaro's sire. A stud deal, with an estimated value of $50 million, was announced an hour before the Preakness.
Big Brown ran the mile and three-sixteenths in 1:54.80, which equated to a Beyer speed figure of 100, several lengths slower than his Derby win.
The players at Pimlico bet $5.3 million to win on 1-5 Big Brown. So much was bet on him to win that he actually paid more to place ($2.60) than he did to win ($2.40).
The two horses in front of Big Brown to the top of the stretch, Riley Tucker and Gayego, finished last and next-to-last, respectively. This is not a coincidence. Big Brown does not just beat horses. The horses that dare hang near him early get run right to the back of the pack.
There was a very interesting race within the race. Earlier this year, Edgar Prado thought he had been promised the mount on Big Brown. Promises in horse racing are like promises in politics. Desormeaux got the mount.
So there was Prado riding Riley Tucker like the race was 6 furlongs, asking his colt early to rush out of the gate, pushing him ahead of Big Brown coming out of the first turn when it looked like Desormeaux was going to have clear sailing. That was Riley Tucker who came up outside Big Brown with Gayego just in front of the Derby winner.
For an instant, Big Brown was trapped. So Desormeaux tapped on the brakes, let Riley Tucker pass by and then swung Big Brown to the middle of the track for the long run down the backstretch. From there, it was a question of how, when, and by how many.
"Going down the backside when Kent got him out and he was laying third on the outside, I knew it was over," Dutrow said.
Casino Drive is going to need a new rider for the Belmont Stakes. Word is that it will most likely be an American-based jockey. The most likely candidate is a man with incentive - Edgar Prado.
Big Brown will be just the fourth horse to hit the Belmont Stakes without a loss. Only Seattle Slew (1977) made it through. Majestic Prince (1969) and Smarty finished second.
"It looks like Big Brown might win the Belmont farther than Secretariat," said Patrick Gallagher, trainer of 10th place finisher Yankee Bravo.
That would be 31 lengths. That is not likely. Just about anything else, however, is clearly possible. *
Tale of Ekati, fourth in the Kentucky Derby, is still under consideration for the Belmont Stakes, Smullen said, though he is also nominated to the Ohio Derby on May 31. He was scheduled to have his first breeze since the Derby on Tuesday.
Plans also have been made for a couple of the stable's other 3-year-olds. Big Truck, 18th in the Kentucky Derby, is being pointed to the Grade 3, $100,000 Hill Prince Stakes on the turf here June 6. Big Truck worked four furlongs in 49.53 seconds Monday morning on the dirt, but is scheduled to have his next two breezes on the grass, Smullen said.
Groomedforvictory, a New York-bred son of Victory Gallop, is being pointed to the Grade 2, $250,000 Woody Stephens at seven furlongs on Belmont Day. Groomedforvictory has won his last two starts, including the Screenland Stakes for New York-breds in which he ran 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:16.95 and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 97.
"It might be asking a little much of him, but he hasn't done anything wrong," Smullen said.
On Sunday, Groomedforvictory worked four furlongs in 47.64 over Belmont's main track.
Denis of Cork, third to Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands and winner of the Grade III Southwest Stakes, turned in a five-furlong breeze today at Churchill Downs. It was his first workout since the Derby. 'Denis' went five in 1:01 (5/31).
Hes just starting to come back to himself, said Carroll. He finished up strong in the Derby and galloped out. With all the rain weve had here, I didnt do a whole lot with him since the Derby--you dont have to do a whole lot with him. Today we just let him stretch his legs, and he just went beautiful.
The colt is expected to breeze twice more before he travels to Belmont Park in an effort to derail Big Browns bid to become the twelfth horse to sweep the Triple Crown.
Its good to get his head back in the game, Carroll said. Well see what happens in the Belmont. Big Brown is just a beautiful horse--a fantastic horse. But it wouldnt hurt me to see him get beat. Casino Drive will be the second choice, but after that I dont know. We fit well in that race with him.
Denis of Cork won his first three starts, including the Southwest on Feb. 18, but turned in a poor effort in a fifth-place finish in the Grade II Illinois Derby on April 5. Carrolls colt rebounded in the Kentucky Derby, where he was last in the field of 20 in the early going and trailed the leaders by 19 lengths. He rallied in the stretch to finish 8 1/2 lengths behind Big Brown.
I am feeling pretty confident about things, trainer Rick Dutrow said. I can see that he is sharp. Yesterday he was bouncing, and today the same thing. He is doing good and that makes everything so much easier.
Big Brown, who has won all of his five career races by a combined 39 lengths, is only the fourth horse to emerge from the Kentucky Derby and Preakness undefeated, joining Majestic Prince (1969), Seattle Slew (1977) and Smarty Jones (2004). Seattle Slew is the only horse in history to emerge undefeated from the Belmont Stakes and a Triple Crown sweep.
I havent seen anybody that has made him run yet, said Dutrow. I have to believe that this race the other day was just an absolute super free race for the Belmont. He wasnt under any pressure at any time in the race. It looks like the jock asked him for run for maybe a sixteenth of a mile just to separate him from the field to put the race away. After that point he just glided to the wire. We were really hoping for a race like that and we got it. We cant complain about anything.
Thirty-one other horses have left Pimlico with a chance at the Triple Crown, including six since 1997, with 11 finishing what is probably the most elusive prize in sports. Dutrow is confident his star can join elite company.
Everyone can see he is a special kind of horse, Dutrow said. As long as we can keep him well within himself, well have a chance. Everybody is very excited about him, and how can you not be. It looks like he has a chance at being one of the best ever. If we get beat in the Belmont, we are just going to be amongst a whole lot of horses that almost got there, so we need to win this race. He looks like by far that he is the best horse going into the race.
After walking the shedrow at 8:00 this morning, the colt boarded a Brook Ledge van without incident and exited the Pimlico backstretch two hours later, headed for the Big Apple.
I havent been in New York for like three or four months, joked Dutrow, who is based at Aqueduct. I have like eight dinner reservations tonight. Whoever makes me the best offer is where Ill go.
Click-2-Listen
By HAL HABIB
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 18, 2008
BALTIMORE It's 14 hours after Big Brown's glorified workout that wasn't much of a workout, and he's wondering what the fuss is about. Perhaps 20 reporters have gathered to chat with trainer Rick Dutrow, but the real star of the show wants his say, too.
Big Brown cannot talk - news flash: there is something this horse cannot do - but he sends unmistakable signals. Ears perked up.
Eyes glistening a lot. Coat glistening even more. Being as sharp as he is, Big Brown probably gets just as big a laugh as Dutrow over the question of how the horse is doing Sunday, the morning after winning the Preakness.
"Well ...," Dutrow says with a sweeping gesture toward the nearby stall where, by merely poking his head out, Big Brown emphatically answers the question.
"He seems a bit cheeky this morning," his exercise rider, Michelle Nevin, later adds while taking Big Brown for a walk around Pimlico's stakes barn.
The most important message is as clear as Big Brown's eyes. When the Belmont Stakes rolls around June 7, there is every reason to believe horse racing will have its 12th Triple Crown champion and first since Affirmed in 1978.
Forget the 11/2-mile distance. Forget three races in five weeks. Just don't forget to program the TiVo.
"Everybody's going to find out where he belongs," Dutrow says of Big Brown's place in history. "If he wins this next race, he'll be with any good horse that's ever run. That's when they'll be talking about him. He'll be in the same breath as Secretariat, Affirmed, all those good ones."
And make no mistake, Dutrow fully expects that to happen. He once said he was going to wait until after the Belmont to throw a party in New York, where he lives. Dutrow now says he's starting to put the bash together today.
"As long as the horse is OK, nothin' else matters," Dutrow says.
In Dutrow's eyes, that includes Japan's Casino Drive, who some believe might give Big Brown the first legit test of his career. Although the next three weeks will hype that matchup, Dutrow is even allowing himself to peek beyond Casino Drive, to what should be the best and most competitive race Big Brown will have.
Assuming both horses stay the course, the Breeders' Cup Classic would feature a fresh Triple Crown winner vs. the reigning horse of the year, Curlin, who captured the Preakness in 2007.
"That'd be one big race," Dutrow says. "Everybody would love to see that.
"It'd be exciting."
It also would almost certainly be the last time anyone sees Big Brown compete, since principal owner Michael Iavarone signed a stud agreement with Three Chimneys Farm on Saturday. In between the Belmont and the Breeders', Dutrow expects Big Brown's only other race to be the Travers at Saratoga.
But first comes the Belmont, which tentatively is also expecting Anak Nakal, Denis of Cork, Tale of Ekati and Tomcito. Casino Drive impressed by winning the Peter Pan Stakes on May 10 at Belmont to remain undefeated, but Dutrow expects Casino Drive to regress like many other horses in their second races after shipping from overseas.
"I hope he gets sick or something like that," Dutrow says. "I don't want to run against anything that can run. It's not going to help us win."
But at the same time, Dutrow says he believes Casino Drive gave maximum effort in the Peter Pan, whereas Big Brown exerted almost no effort against an overmatched field in the Preakness. Dutrow has an important corroborating witness - Kent Desormeaux rode Casino Drive that day but will be back atop Big Brown in the Belmont.
Casino Drive also will try to become the first horse to win the Belmont in his third career start since Prince Eugene in 1913. Algerine, in 1876, was the only other such winner. But Casino Drive is a half-brother to the past two Belmont winners, Jazil and Rags to Riches, so his breeding indicates he can handle the distance.
Big Brown, on the other hand, will try to clear a hurdle that proved too much for 18 others seeking a Triple Crown, most recently Smarty Jones in 2004. Ironically, Dutrow asked his friend, trainer Bobby Frankel, if Big Brown could use the former Belmont stall of Empire Maker, who in '03 spoiled Funny Cide's Triple Crown bid. Frankel said OK. If Empire Maker's karma rubs off, Big Brown, a lifetime 5-0, would join Seattle Slew (1977) as the only undefeated Triple Crown winners.
"I'm a very lucky guy to be around this horse," Dutrow says. "It just comes around once in a lifetime where you can win a Triple Crown. ... That has to be the most exciting thing that a horseman could want."
It's pretty good for a trainer. Pretty good for a horse, too, as Big Brown shows while strutting alongside Nevin.
"He's very proud of himself," Dutrow says. "You see how he is when you guys are all here. He loves to meet new people."
In New York, 100,000 could show for a race. For a coronation.
"Everybody wants to see something great," Dutrow says.
Sunday morning, visitors to Big Brown's barn did.
Big Brown Part of Pompa's Payback
NEW YORK -- Paul Pompa Jr. glanced at his laptop screen Wednesday morning, eagerly checking if the e-mail he was waiting for had appeared. "Not here yet," he said. In most ways, this day was like any other for the owner of horse racing's star of the moment. Pompa woke up at his home in Warren, N.J., at 4:30 a.m. and arrived at his office in Brooklyn by 6:30. He ensured the trucks left the yard on time, then settled behind his desk, one room over from his brother Tom and his cousin Pete.
Pompa owns Truck-Rite Corp., the business he took over from his father then built from a small, family operation into one of the largest trucking companies in the city. Truck-Rite employs roughly 200 workers, and Pompa can match a name with every face. Pompa's presence in the office ceased being necessary for his own financial well-being long ago, but he works every day, anyway. "What else am I going to do?" he said.
Wednesday, though, was different, more urgent and more exciting. Five minutes had passed, and he spun around in his chair and refreshed his e-mail again. "Oh," he said. "Here it is." Confirmation had arrived.
"You're here when history is being made," Pompa told a visitor. "We're selling the breeding rights to Big Brown."
Pompa, 49, is a common man within stunningly close reach to one of sport's most uncommon feats. He bought a horse for $190,000 at a 2-year-old-in-training sale at Keeneland in April 2007, shortly after he had renewed Truck-Rite's lucrative contract with United Parcel Service. To celebrate, and to give a nod to the drivers of UPS trucks, Pompa named the horse Big Brown. That horse won the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago, and he may become the first since 1978 to win the Triple Crown, the second leg of which will run Saturday at the Preakness Stakes.
Pompa owns just 25 percent of Big Brown now, since he sold the majority of him to International Equine Acquisitions Holdings for about $3 million after Big Brown's maiden race in September. But Pompa, some eight years after he jumped into horse racing, has forged a unique place at the sport's apex, a blue-collar New Yorker without pretense in an industry loaded with it.
"I hope to be thought of as different, yeah," Pompa said, a thin smile spreading on his face. And he is. Trainer Patrick Reynolds met Pompa in 2002, when they ate lunch in Pompa's Truck-Rite office. Reynolds, who like Pompa was born in New York, drew an immediate contrast between Pompa and the other owners he knows.
Pompa wears modest clothing and no gaudy jewelry. He and his wife, Lisa, have two sons -- the eldest will be graduating from college this year; the youngest will be graduating from high school. Pompa speaks directly and honestly. He brings his cousin Jerry, a longtime handicapper, with him, because Pompa relies on him for advice. Reynolds has seen owners bluster their way into -- and quickly out of -- the horse racing game.
"In this day and age, it's a daily hustle; it's a war," said Reynolds, who trained Big Brown before the sale to IEAH. "If the game had more owners like him, it would be a whole lot easier to negotiate. He takes care of the people around him. He's the best owner that I've had."
Pompa entered horse racing in 2000 because, he said: "I needed an outlet. I needed some action." He's received all he wants in the past year, ever since Big Brown won his first race by 11 3/4 lengths, a staggering margin. He took 26 family members and friends with him to the Kentucky Derby, paying the expenses for them all.
"It's fun to be me right now," Pompa said.
The week after his victory, though, he was back at his second-floor office, the one that overlooks the East River. He brought with him a stack of victory photographs from the Derby, but nothing else had changed. He didn't need to be there, and yet he was.
"He could walk away and live a nice life," Tom Pompa said. "There's a concern for the 200 employees."
Said Pompa: "It means something when they see the boss of the company -- a Kentucky Derby-winning owner -- here at 6:30 in the morning."
By 2000, his trucking business had begun to nearly run itself, more successful than his father ever could have imagined. Paul Pompa Sr. was the first one in his family born in the United States rather than Italy. He worked on an assembly line at Curtis-Wright Aeronautical until 1966.
"He said, '[Forget] this, I'm starting my own business,' " Pompa said.
He bought a couple trucks and a building in Manhattan. He and his brother drove and delivered freight themselves, and Paul Sr. swelled the business enough that he could send the oldest of his four children off to Kings College in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Paul Jr. graduated from Kings in 1980 and returned home unsure of what would come next. He had been a journalism and government double major; maybe, he figured, he would become a senator. In the meantime, he went to work for his father, who asked him, "What the hell did I send you to college for if you want to do this?"
But Pompa's education had allowed him to see more potential in Truck-Rite than his father ever had. He struck deals with paper companies springing up around New York and doubled Truck-Rite's revenue in eight months. Paul Sr. had always squeaked by on his street smarts, and his son's education offered a perfect balance.
"You always use the textbook method," his father would tell him.
In 1982, his father named him company president at age 24. Father and son moved their business from Manhattan to the Greenpoint area of Brooklyn, where Pompa's 85 trucks now occupy eight acres. In 1980, the company made $500,000. Last year, Truck-Rite grossed $20 million.
It was not always smooth. Pompa's two largest accounts declared bankruptcy in 1990, and production dwindled. His workforce was too large for the amount of work required. Pompa didn't lay off a single driver. He and Pete Durante, his cousin and partner, would wait until 3 a.m. some nights to make sure all the truckers arrived back in Greenpoint safely.
"We could have been doing a lot better off if we had" fired people, Durante said. "We could have cut a bunch of people. Paul is the most patient person I've ever met in my life."
The partnership with UPS came in 1994, and Pompa never worried about employing too many drivers again. Paul Sr. and Paul Jr. worked in the same office together until November 2000, when Paul Sr. suffered a heart attack and died. Paul Sr.'s desk remains untouched in tribute, its contents as they were when he passed away: black, plastic shelves holding paperwork; a toy model of a Mack truck; a thick, multicolored glass dish; two pens jutting up from a gold nameplate that reads "Paul Pompa Sr."
Before he died, Paul Pompa Sr. watched horses his son owned win three races. The first horse Pompa bought, a filly, gave Pompa his first victory. He named her Textbook Method.
Pompa owns roughly 20 horses aside from Big Brown, including one who doesn't race anymore. He once sent a horse to a farm, and a disabled girl who lived there became attached to it. The farm's owner wrote Pompa a four-page letter detailing how much the girl had fallen in love with the horse, how she saw courage in it and how it had helped her healing. Pompa told the farm's owner to keep the horse.
"We're only here for a short time. If you don't help other people, what good are you?" Pompa said. "I made more money in my life than I ever thought I was going to make. If you don't do right by other people, then what good are ya?"
He paused.
"I'm not trying to be a philosopher. I'm just trying to give you the way I feel about life. I try to treat people the way I want to be treated, and I think I've been rewarded for that. If I gave you a story or two or three, it would be bragging. I don't want to come off as a braggart. But you know, I've helped a lot of people in my life. I view this run that I'm on right now as, maybe, sort of payback
by Deirdre B. Biles
Updated: May 20, 2008
West Point Thoroughbreds Macho Again, winner of the Derby Trial and second to Big Brown in the Preakness (gr. I), will be pointed for the Belmont Stakes (gr. I), according to West Point founder and president Terry Finley.
It (the Belmont) looks like kind of the same deal as the Preakness, said Finley May 19 while attending the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic preferred sale of 2-year-olds in training in Maryland. Its a decent group of horses, but nobody really stands out except Big Brown. I know Casino Drive ran well in the Peter Pan (gr. II), but I think we ran pretty well in the Derby Trial and we ran OK in the Preakness. It (the Belmont purse) is a million dollars, so were going to roll the dice again.
A son of Macho Uno, Macho Again has captured three of his nine career races and has finished second three times while being trained by Dallas Stewart. The gray or roan colt has earned $343,761.
We cant beat Big Brown without something going wrong -- his feet or he has terrible racing luck, Finley said. Were going there with the intention of running well and hitting the board. Some people would say, Why would you run in a race where you dont have shot? But things can happen.
May 19, 2008
Tale of Ekati worked at Saratoga yesterday, breezing four furlongs on the training track in :49.80 (6/21).
BIG BROWN
May 19, 2008
Nearly 40 hours after Big Brown's win in the Preakness Stakes, the dual classic winner left the Pimlico stakes barn and headed to New York. The son of Boundary will attempt to become the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years in the Belmont Stakes on June 7.
I am feeling pretty confident about things, trainer Rick Dutrow said. I can see that he is sharp. Yesterday he was bouncing, and today the same thing. He is doing good and that makes everything so much easier.
Big Brown, who has won all of his five career races by a combined 39 lengths, is only the fourth horse to emerge from the Kentucky Derby and Preakness undefeated, joining Majestic Prince (1969), Seattle Slew (1977) and Smarty Jones (2004). Seattle Slew is the only horse in history to emerge undefeated from the Belmont Stakes and a Triple Crown sweep.
I havent seen anybody that has made him run yet, said Dutrow. I have to believe that this race the other day was just an absolute super free race for the Belmont. He wasnt under any pressure at any time in the race. It looks like the jock asked him for run for maybe a sixteenth of a mile just to separate him from the field to put the race away. After that point he just glided to the wire. We were really hoping for a race like that and we got it. We cant complain about anything.
Thirty-one other horses have left Pimlico with a chance at the Triple Crown, including six since 1997, with 11 finishing what is probably the most elusive prize in sports. Dutrow is confident his star can join elite company.
Everyone can see he is a special kind of horse, Dutrow said. As long as we can keep him well within himself, well have a chance. Everybody is very excited about him, and how can you not be. It looks like he has a chance at being one of the best ever. If we get beat in the Belmont, we are just going to be amongst a whole lot of horses that almost got there, so we need to win this race. He looks like by far that he is the best horse going into the race.
After walking the shedrow at 8:00 this morning, the colt boarded a Brook Ledge van without incident and exited the Pimlico backstretch two hours later, headed for the Big Apple.
CASINO DRIVE
May 21, 2008
Nobutaka Tada, managing director of Globe Equine Management Ltd. told Tim Wilkin of the Albany Times Union that the logical choice to ride Casino Drive in the Belmont Stakes would be Yutaka Take, a leading rider in Japan. However, a decision hasn't been made yet.
Take rode Casino Drive in his first and only start in Japan, a $125,000 maiden special weight on Feb. 23. Casino Drive won that race by 11 1/2 lengths.
Casino Drive, a Kentucky-bred bought for $950,000 at Keeneland's September 2006 Yearling Sale, spent his days in Japan before being brought here on May 1 to be readied for the Belmont Stakes. Kent Desormeaux, Big Brown's rider, was on Casino Drive when he won the Grade II Peter Pan on May 10.
The Peter Pan was only the second start for Casino Drive. Still, he's expected to be the second choice in the wagering for the Belmont Stakes.
DENIS OF CORK
May 19, 2008
Denis of Cork was ridden by Calvin Borel in the Kentucky Derby, but jockey Robby Albarado will have the mount in the Belmont Stakes.
Denis of Cork, third to Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands and winner of the Grade III Southwest Stakes, turned in a five-furlong breeze today at Churchill Downs. It was his first workout since the Derby. 'Denis' went five in 1:01 (5/31).
Hes just starting to come back to himself, said Carroll. He finished up strong in the Derby and galloped out. With all the rain weve had here, I didnt do a whole lot with him since the Derby--you dont have to do a whole lot with him. Today we just let him stretch his legs, and he just went beautiful.
The colt is expected to breeze twice more before he travels to Belmont Park in an effort to derail Big Browns bid to become the twelfth horse to sweep the Triple Crown.
Its good to get his head back in the game, Carroll said. Well see what happens in the Belmont. Big Brown is just a beautiful horse--a fantastic horse. But it wouldnt hurt me to see him get beat. Casino Drive will be the second choice, but after that I dont know. We fit well in that race with him.
Denis of Cork won his first three starts, including the Southwest on Feb. 18, but turned in a poor effort in a fifth-place finish in the Grade II Illinois Derby on April 5. Carrolls colt rebounded in the Kentucky Derby, where he was last in the field of 20 in the early going and trailed the leaders by 19 lengths. He rallied in the stretch to finish 8 1/2 lengths behind Big Brown.
MACHO AGAIN
May 21, 2008
Macho Again, second in the Preakness, is being pointed to the Belmont Stakes.
We cant beat Big Brown without something going wrong -- his feet or he has terrible racing luck, West Point Thoroughbreds' Terry Finley said. Were going there with the intention of running well and hitting the board. Some people would say, Why would you run in a race where you dont have shot? But things can happen.
TALE OF EKATI
May 21, 2008
Tale of Ekati worked four furlongs in :46.80 (1/37), handily, yesterday at Belmont Park. It was his first workout since finishing fourth in the Kentucky Derby. Exercise rider Kristen Troxell handled the move.
Tale of Ekati is set for work twice more before the Belmont Stakes for trainer Barclay Tagg, who often likes to space workouts six days apart. Such a schedule would put Tale of Ekati on course to have his final workout before the Belmont Stakes six days before the race.
TOMCITO
No updates yet.
Breeder: Buckram Oak Farm
Trainer: Nick Zito
Owner: Four Roses Thoroughbreds
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Victory Gallop (Cryptoclearance, Victorious Lil (CAN))
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Misk (Quiet American, Perlee (FR))
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 5-7-8-0-0 (20) 4.00
Foal Date: 4-23-05
Performance at Age Three
Feb. 24, Grade II Fountain of Youth Stakes, Gulfstream Park, 1 1/8 Mile.
Memo, Please Note: Posted March 25, 2008
For the second time after the running of the Fountain of Youth, the final and fractional times were revised. Today, Gulfstream said that upon review, the official final time for the 1 1/8-mile race will now be listed as 1:50.07. The initial winning time, on the tote board and in charts, was 1:51.85. A revision to the chart made yesterday called the race in 1:49.53.
Anak Nakal (10-1) had no front pace to run at, and he needs that. He finished eighth, beaten 16 lengths by Cool Coal Man (7-1), after running twelfth or eleventh of 12 for six furlongs.
"With the slow pace, (Anak Nakal) really had no chance. He needs pace up front."--Nick Zito
March 15, Grade II Rebel Stakes, Oaklawn Park, 1 1/16 Mile. Anak Nakal (7-1) again disappointed, finishing seventh after running sixth and fifth much of the race.
April 5, Grade I Wood Memorial, Aqueduct, 1 1/8 Mile. Anak Nakal woke up a little bit in this race. He finished fifth, beaten 4 1/2 lengths. He made up some ground going five wide on the second turn, then ran evenly down the stretch.
May 3, Grade I Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, 1 1/4 Mile. Anak Nakal finished seventh, beaten 17 1/2 lengths by Big Brown. Although he was demolished by the winner, Anak Nakal certainly outran his 53-1 odds and thus may have shown further improvement as his 3-year-old campaign continued.
On May 18, ANAK NAKAL breezed four on the training track in :49.80 (6/21) at SAR.
Performance at Age Two
Anak Nakal broke his maiden first time out going seven furlongs at Belmont Park on Sept. 28, timed in 1:23.25. He won by a length after closing from eighth and altering his course in the stretch.
Oct. 28, Grade III Nashua Stakes, Aqueduct, One Mile. Under Julien Leparoux, Anak Nakal had a runner-up effort to the then very strong Etched. On good dirt, Anak Nakal was beaten 6 1/2 lengths to a time of 1:36.96 going one turn.
Nov. 24, Grade II Kentucky Jockey Club, Churchill Downs, 1 1/16 Mile. Stretched out to two turns for the first time, Anak Nakal (8-1) won the race by a half-length over a closing Blackberry Road. He was timed in 1:43.16 under Julien Leparoux.
Anak Nakal settled in the middle of the pack out of the starting gate as favored Halo Najib, Cool Coal Man and Mythical Pegasus scrambled for the early lead. That trio took the field through fractions of :23.72, :46.94 and 1:11.56. The winner sat fourth, in the clear, behind that trio after a half-mile, while Racecar Rhapsody and Blackberry Road trailed the field.
Anak Nakal passed the tiring leaders inside the final eighth of a mile while Blackberry Road, who rallied stongly from more than a dozen lengths off the lead under Calvin Borel, closed to his inside and Racecar Rhapsody closed five-wide. The winner held off the late runners.
This is a nice horse. He has only had two races and that horse of Darleys (Etched) that won the Nashua, he was a good second to him. This race, the progression was perfect. This horse ran seven-eighths, a mile and now a mile and a sixteenth.... He looks like he will go a distance of ground. I was really impressed when the horse...came up the inside, and my horse...saw him and he took off again....
"When you win a race like this, you just want to have your eyes on the Derby.... He will go to Palm Meadows.--Nick Zito
He is a long-striding horse, and thats why I was kind of asking him (leaving the backstretch), because he does not have much of a kick but he just keeps on going. He is kind of a grinder. The pace in front of me was ideal and the race set up perfect for me.--Julien Leparoux
Photo by Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club BIG BROWN (KY)
Breeder: Monticule
Trainer: Rick Dutrow
Owner: IEAH Stable and Paul Pompa
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Boundary (Danzig, Edge)
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Mien (Nureyev, Miasma)
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 4-7-23-2-0 (36) 1.67
Foal Date: 4-10-05
A $190,000 Keeneland April 2007 purchase.
Performance at Age Three
March 5, Entry-Level Allowance, Gulfstream Park, One Mile. Big Brown powered his way to a probable start in the Grade I Florida Derby after winning an off-the-turf allowance race by 12 3/4 lengths. Big Brown stayed well out from the rail and still came home in the one-turn mile race in 1:35.66 under Kent Desormeaux. He was never more than a length off the lead. Initial fractions were :45.31 and 1:09.87.
I was worried all last night, because hes had two quarter cracks that have been holding him back, said Dutrow. He breezed the other day, and when I watched him work, to me, he just looks like an absolute freak. Talent like he has makes up for a lack of experience. Hes that good.
I knew he was going to do great on the dirt because I breezed him with Diamond Stripes, and (Big Brown) just carried him around the track."--Rick Dutrow
March 29, Grade I Florida Derby, Gulfstream Park, 1 1/8 Mile. Big Brown overcame the far outside post position 12 and limited experience to emerge a five-length winner. He remained undefeated after just three career starts in a performance that will send him into the Kentucky Derby among the favorites.
Ridden by Kent Desormeaux, Big Brown was sent off the 3-2 favorite. Desormeaux let the big bay colt roll from the far outside in the short run to the first turn, where he was able to take command. Big Brown led at all calls, widening his advantage down the stretch. Fractions were :22:76, :45:83, 1:10:08 and 1:35:18. Final time was 1:48:16
Weve got a Kentucky Derby contender. Its a long way off, and a lot of things have to happen right, but I expected him to run just like what we saw. This day ranks on top of my career. He came out of the gate like we wanted him to. I loved being on the outside. It eliminated our chance of getting in trouble. Going into the race, the only way we cold get beat was if we got in trouble. In the first turn I knew it was over. I knew the horses in here couldnt catch him. All I have to do is stay out of his way. I let him do what he wants.--Winning trainer Rick Dutrow
My plan was not to get on the lead, but rather to get close enough to the rail so as not to get caught wide. Riding him was like bounding through a meadow. He just galloped around. When a horse sets fractions like that and still tells me that hes got more, and that the other horses cant get to him, thats something special. Hes a major talent; possibly the best horse Ive ridden. I thought that after the first time I rode him. Id have to say that hes my (Kentucky) Derby horse.--Winning jockey Kent Desormeaux
May 3, Grade I Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, 1 1/14 Mile. Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby in dominating fashion, becoming the first horse since 1915 to take the race off only three prior career starts. In doing so, he also became the first winner to break from post 20 since 1929.
In spite of predictions from several quarters that the race would begin with a fast early pace, the fractions were moderate. Bob Black Jack, who broke from post 13, took the early lead, going the first quarter-mile in :23.30. Meanwhile, Big Brown wasn't far from that pace but went into the first turn four wide, outside of Bob Black, Cowboy Cal and Recapturetheglory. The latter two horses broke from posts 17 and 18, respectively.
Bob Black Jack led through the first half-mile in :47.04 and six furlongs in 1:11.14.
As he ran down the backstretch under Kent Desormeaux, Big Brown was "just cruising" in sixth place and not into the bit, Desormeaux said. The jockey said he asked for Big Brown to move going into the far turn, improving position to gain a narrow lead with a quarter mile to go. At that point, Desormeaux said he asked Big Brown to wait, then at the 3/16 pole, "I showered him."
Big Brown gained a 2 1/2-length lead with an eighth of a mile to go and drew off to win by 4 3/4 lengths. He was timed in 2:01.82 for the mile and a quarter race.
May 17, Grade I Preakness Stakes, Pimlico, 1 3/16 Mile. Big Brown dominated the field in Preakness 133 to win by 5 1/4 lengths.
Easily the best under Kent Desormeaux, Big Brown's time of 1:54.80 was a little over a second off the stakes record of 1:53 3/5 held by Tank's Prospect (1985) and Louis Quatorze (1996).
Gayego, wearing blinkers for the first time, and Riley Tucker took the early battle to Big Brown, leading through the first six furlongs in :23.59, :46:81and 1:10.48. By the time the trio hit the second turn, Big Brown, looking invincible, went into another gear, distanced himself from the field down the stretch, and hit the finish line under wraps.
Macho Again and Icabad Crane finished second and third, followed by Racecar Rhapsody, to outlast eight other overmatched foes. Kentucky Bear, who stumbled at the break, was never in contention. Gayego and Riley Tucker both faded badly.
Going down the backside when Kent got him out and he was laying third on the outside, I knew it was over. He just bided his time as long as he could. I only saw him ask for run once just to separate himself, then he guided him to the wire. It was beautiful.
I was nervous, scared about the two weeks, stuff like that, but hes overcome everything. It doesnt look like he got on his belly today, so we should have enough horse to get the job done.--Trainer Rick Dutrow
Ill tell you what, I asked him for his stride at the corner almost déjà vu to the Derby. I looked between my legs, under my arms, and they were eight back. I just stopped riding and reeled him in and made sure he didnt pull himself up."--Kent Desormeaux
Performance at Age Two
In his sole race last year, Big Brown won a 1 1/16-mile turf race at Saratoga in September by 11 1/4 lengths after leading all the way in splits of :47.54 and 1:11.84 and a final time of 1:40.33.
CASINO DRIVE (KY)
Breeder: Shell Bloodstock
Trainer: Kazuo Fujisawa
Owner: Hidetoshi Yamamoto
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Mineshaft (A.P. Indy, Prospector's Delite)
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Better Than Honour (Deputy Minister, Blush with Pride)
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 10-6-12-0-0 (28) 3.67
Foal Date: 3-7-05
Purchased for $950,000 at Keeneland September 2006.
He's out of Better Than Honour, the dam of 2006 and 2007 Belmont Stakes winners Jazil and Rags to Riches.
Performance at Age Three
Feb. 23, Maiden Special Weight, Kyoto, About 1 1/8 Mile. Racing for a $125,000 purse, Casino Drive won by 11 1/2 lengths, timed in 1:54.40. After that, he bounced around from different training centers and Japanese racetracks, dodging an outbreak of influenza.
May 10, Grade II Peter Pan Stakes, Belmont Park, 1 1/8 Mile. Casino Drive looked like the real deal, easily winning the Grade II Peter Pan Stakes in just his second start. It was an impressive race for Casino Drive, who did everything right and professionally in his 5 3/4-length victory.
Under Kent Desormeaux, who won the Kentucky Derby last week with Big Brown, Casino Drive saved ground behind a fast pace and came out of the turn between horses to victory in 1:47.87. Sent off at 6-5 odds, he paid $4.50 to win.
Casino Drive acted up a bit in the paddock, which Desormeaux dismissed as "playful exuberance," but he settled once the race began. He nestled himself on the rail, as Spark Candle, racing with blinkers, kept the heat on Mint Lane through splits of 23.08, 46.31, 1:10.47 and 1:35.26.
Desormeaux calmly waited until the stretch before tipping his mount out and sending him onward to the Belmont Stakes a winner. Mint Lane held on for second, while a late-running Ready's Echo charged down the stretch to get third. Golden Spikes, who ran just behind the early pace and made a strong middle move, faded to finish fourth.
"Today, he proved his ability. He had so much to overcome: only one race, more than two-month layoff, long trip and quarantine. Now, we have three weeks to go to the Belmont Stakes, and he has three weeks to improve. And he has so much potential to improve. He likes it here at Belmont Park. He feels like he's home. He's an American-bred, so he is home."--Nobutaka Tada, managing director of Globe Equine Management Ltd.
"I certainly understand how Jazil and Rags to Riches won the Belmont. Yeah, he can run a lot. It's going to be fun. He's a phenomenal talent, and we've got our hands full with this one. It's going to be ultimately exciting for all of the fans. Hes got that stride."--Kent Desormeaux
Performance at Age Two
Unraced.
Horsephotos/NTRA DENIS OF CORK (FL)
Breeder: Westbury Stables
Trainer: David Carroll
Owner: William K Warren, Jr.
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Harlan's Holiday (Harlan, Christmas in Aiken)
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Unbridled Girl (Unbridled, Sound Wisdom)
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 3-3-6-0-2 (14) 1.80
Foal Date: 2-16-05
Bought for $250,000 at the Barretts March 2007 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale.
Performance at Age Three
Jan. 19, Entry-Level Allowance, Fair Grounds, One Mile 40 Yards. Denis of Cork 4-5) returned mixed messages in this win by a head over Unbridled Vicar (3-1). On the positive side, Denis of Cork was four-wide around both turns and down the backstretch, while placed fifth, then fourth--and he won on the slop. On the negative side, he was hard-used in the stretch to get up over Unbridled Vicar.
The winning time was 1:42.83. Initial fractions were :25.32, :49.89 and :114.90.
Calvin Borel came to Fair Grounds from Oaklawn to ride Denis of Cork, his only mount on the 10-race program. He was struggling the whole way around, and there was no pace in the race. He was swimming the whole way, but thats all right. He has a big heart and he did the job.--Calvin Borel
Feb. 18, Grade III Southwest Stakes, Oaklawn Park, One Mile. Behind fast up-front fractions of :22.72 and :45.25, Denis of Cork made up an 18-length deficit and unfurled a three-wide rally down the stretch under Robby Albarado to capture the race by 2 1/4 lengths. Sierra Sunset (11-1), who raced relatively forwardly the entire trip, easily took second. The winner covered the distance in 1:37.89.
An 8-1 morning line, Denis of Cork opened up in the wagering at 2-1. From there, his odds drifted up until post time. He was sent off at 9-2 under Robby Albarado.
April 5, Grade II Illinois Derby, Hawthorne, 1 1/8 Mile. Denis of Cork was steadied into the first turn but never mounted a challenge. He was a soundly beaten fifth, defeated 8 1/2 lengths by front-running Recapturetheglory.
We had a good trip, and when I asked him at the 3/8ths pole, I thought he was ready to go. He kept going but there was no kick to get there.--Julien Leparoux
May 3, Grade I Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, 1 1/4 Mile. Calvin Borel took Denis of Cork straight over to the rail from post 16. Saving ground the entire trip, Denis of Cork was twentieth of 20 horses after a quarter-mile, a half-mile and six furlongs. He started passing horses on the far turn and continued doing that in the stretch to finish third, beaten 8 1/4 lengths by Big Brown.
On May 19, DENIS OF CORK breezed five in 1:01 (5/31) at CD.
Performance at Age Two
Denis of Cork won his debut race at Churchill Downs on Nov. 24, timed in 1:22.42 going seven furlongs. He was eleventh of 12 at the first call, then uncorked a sustained drive to best Stungbythestorm by three parts of a length. The runner-up was over seven lengths clear of the show horse. Denis of Cork was hard-ridden at the end.
We would have been disappointed if he had gotten beat. He is a nice colt, and he had trained with Blackberry Road. He was ready to run the first of the meet, but the quarantine put that on hold. He is a big, leggy horse and I didnt even plan to run him at Keeneland, and thats why I was shooting for the first of this meet. I wanted to run him before we left. I will look to stretch him out at the Fair Grounds.--David Carroll
MACHO AGAIN (FL)
Breeder: Milan Kosanovich
Trainer: Dallas Stewart
Owner: West Point Stable
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Macho Uno (Holy Bull, Primal Force)
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Go Donna Go (Wild Again, Proud Nova)
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 5-2-5-0-0 (12) 3.80
Foal Date: 2-25-05
Macho Again was bought for $85,000 at the 2006 OBS 2006 Yearling Sale, then resold for $150,000 at the OBS 2007 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale.
Performance at Age Three
Jan. 12, Grade III Lecomte Stakes, Fair Grounds, One Mile. Macho Again was the early betting favorite and was sent off the second choice (7-2), but he showed little and finished sixth, beaten 6 3/4 lengths by Z Fortune. Macho Again never impressed on the front of the field, placed sixth, sixth and sixth at the first three calls.
Feb. 28, Entry-Level Allowance, Fair Grounds, Six Furlongs. Sent off at 4-5 off a 3-1 morning line, Macho Again stayed 6 1/2 lengths back of an opening quarter-mile run in :21.98 and started moving on the turn. Going five wide into the stretch, he bore in a bit before drawing off to win by 4 1/2 lengths. Time: 1:11.54.
March 22, Grade II Lane's End Stakes, Turfway Park, 1 1/8 Mile. Macho Again (16-1) was bumped at the start, raced along with other horses, but couldn't make any headway and failed to launch a late bid. He finished seventh, beaten 12 3/4 lengths by Adriano (9-2).
April 26, Derby Trial, Churchill Downs, 7 1/2 Furlongs. Macho Again, returning to a single turn, came from a pack of horses at the top of the stretch to win by a half-length over Kodiak Kowboy, timed in 1:28.45.
Hes a really honest colt. He had a little bit of trouble at the quarter-pole. Kodiak Kowboy dug in tough at the sixteenth pole and Macho had to work hard to get by him and he finished up really well.
"He loves the track. He likes the dirt. Weve just got to keep him off the Polytrack. He trains well over it, but he just doesnt get down and run on it. There are a ton of good 3-year-old races coming up, so well see (what comes next). This horse still has to mature a little bit, but hes got a lot of fight in him."--Dallas Stewart
May 17, Grade I Preakness Stakes, Pimlico, 1 3/16 Mile. Macho Again, at high odds, finished second to Big Brown, beaten 5 1/4 lengths. He saved ground early, started passing horses approaching the turn but was steadied on the turn, then was swung five wide into the stretch, where he finished with energy.
He really, really ran great. I knew he was a real nice horse and came home great. He hooked a superstar, you know.--Trainer Dallas Stewart
We just got beat by a monster. He might just be a Triple Crown winner. We ran huge and thats very important. This is kind of the best second place Ive ever had. I dont like to be second, but its not bad to be second to this horse.--Jockey Julien Leparoux
Performance at Age Two
He broke his maiden in his third start, going seven furlongs at Churchill Downs on Oct. 28.
Nov. 24, Entry-Level Allowance, Churchill Downs, One Mile. Macho Again (5-1) lost by a neck to Monba (4-1), who won for the second time in two starts. Macho Again apparently keyed his race to the winner, racing just behind him every step of the way. The pair were tactically placed fourth and third, respectively, at the first three calls, following opening fractions of :23.25, 4:6.30 and 1:11.08 set by Isabull, then Web Gem, both of whom eventually ran a few lengths up the track.
Macho Again was 1 3/4 lengths clear of the third finisher, Your Round.
Horsephotos/NTRA TALE OF EKATI (KY)
Breeder: Charles Fipke
Trainer: Barclay Tagg
Owner: Charles Fipke
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Tale of the Cat (Storm Cat, Yarn)
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Silence Beauty (Sunday Silence, Maplejinsky)
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 9-1-12-2-0 (24) 2.00
Foal Date: 3-31-05
Note that Japan leading sire and 1989 Kentucky Derby winner Sunday Silence is his dam sire.
Performance at Age Three
March 8, Grade II Louisiana Derby, Fair Grounds, 1 1/16 Mile. Tale of Ekati (9-2) didn't find much early rhythm and ran evenly home sixth, beaten 6 1/2 lengths by Pyro.
It didnt work out the way we had planned. I was supposed to be close, but we broke badly.--Edgar Prado
April 5, Grade I Wood Memorial, Aqueduct, 1 1/8 Mile. Tale of Ekati surged up the rail to wear down front-running War Pass near the wire and win. War Pass was second, followed by a late-running Court Vision. It was the second straight upset of War Pass, who was favored at 4-5 odds. Tale of Ekati paid $19.00 to win.
The final time, on a drying-out track rated fast, was a slow 1:52.35.
Both War Pass and Tale of Ekati broke from the gate much better than they did in their most recent outings. War Pass seized the early lead, heading up the field through a quater-mile in a fast :22.46 and a half-mile in :46.07 while being pressured by Inner Light, Court Vision's stable mate.
Tale of Ekati, who had his head turned sideways when the gate opened for the Grade II Louisiana Derby, got away cleanly as well and tracked the two leaders in third, on the outside down the backstretch while moving closer to them.
After War Pass went six furlongs in 1:11.50 and a mile in 1:38.42, he began to grow weary as Tale of Ekati and Edgar Prado inched nearer.
We always though he was a good horse. Last time, we took him to the Louisiana Derby. He got a little tangled up in the gate there and ran a disappointing race. We still felt good about him, and we worked out some of those issues in the gate.
"He showed up today big time. I thought War Pass was the horse to beat. It was nice to see Inner Light go after War Pass. We were laying a little closer than I wanted him to be, but Edgar has an intuitiveness that has served him pretty well for the last 30 years.
"I have a group of horses in Lexington, and hell ship down there tomorrow morning. Big Brown and War Pass are both in the Derby; that might work out well for us.--Barclay Tagg
Im still in a daze. This is wonderful; of course, he had to beat a great horse, War Pass. This is our prep race for the Derby -- thats where were going next if this didnt take too much out of him. Winning this race is like finding that first diamond, that kind of excitement.
"Hes named for our diamond mine in Ekati, up in the Northwest Territory (of Canada), about 200 miles north of Yellowknife. Id really like to come back to New York and win the Belmont Stakes--that would be my biggest ambition.--Charles Fipke
He didnt break that well (in Louisiana). Today, he broke sharp, and he made my job easier. I had a beautiful trip, and I knew War Pass was going very fast. I was very proud of him. He kept on trying all the way. As far as the Kentucky Derby, well see how he cools out and comes out and go from there.--Edgar Prado
May 3, Grade I Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, 1 1/4 Mile. Tale of Ekati finished a creditable fourth at odds of 37-1, pretty high for a Wood Memorial winner.
Tale of Ekati broke well but was steadied along with others while in tight quarters the opening quarter-mile. Crossing under the wire for the first time, he was ninth. He was kept toward the inside around the first turn and down the backstretch while inching up to seventh place. On the far turn, Tale of Ekati was within striking distance. He went six wide into the stretch, but he could not suddenly accelerate like Big Brown and ran on to be beaten 11 lengths.
On May 20, TALE OF EKATI worked four in :46.80 (1/37) at BEL.
Performance at Age Two
In his debut, Tale of Ekati crushed a field of Belmont Park maidens on July 7.
July 26, Grade II Sanford Stakes, Saratoga, Six Furlongs. Tale of Ekati and The Roundhouse both closed to get second and third, separated by a nose. On a track generally favoring mid-pack closers, Ready's Image stalked three wide along the backstretch following Fed Watcher's fractions of :22.08 and :45.30, started to take over after four furlongs, got clear in upper stretch and drew off. John Velazquez reminded him he was in a race. Final time: 1:09.90. He won by four.
I was pleased he finished second in a Grade 2. I think he is going to need more ground, but I knew that all along. We just need to get through some of these sprints. He handled the dirt in his face while being on the inside. After the wire, he passed the winner.--Barclay Tagg
Tale of Ekati bucked shins after the Sanford, but trainer Tagg said the colt mended quickly and trained well subsequently.
Sept. 15, Grade I Futurity Stakes, Belmont, Seven Furlongs. After his colt hit the gate at the start, Eibar Coa took Tale of Ekati (3-1) on a rail ride home to defeat Kodiak Kowboy (4-5 favorite) by a length.
Mythical Pegasus (18-1) challenged The Leopard (5-2) for the lead from the start, and they battled through splits of :22.90 and :46.46. Meanwhile, Kodiak Kowboy, who had won four straight, took a clear, wide path at the top of the stretch. Tale of Ekati had hung back a bit, his jockey riding high while waiting for room. When Kodiak Kowboy appeared to have the leaders targeted in the stretch, Coa started riding Tale of Ekati and yanked him over to the rail, where he ran by the leaders to win by an easy length. The time: 1:22.33.
Weve been very high on him since weve gotten him to the track. He came back after his last race with some sore shins. He came back well in his workouts. Im with him all day, every day, and you can really tell when a horse is coming to himself. We are very excited about him.--Barclay Tagg
He was very professional, and really helped me out. I was in trouble the whole race, being trapped inside. He was patient with me and didnt get stupid. As soon as he came through, I knew he had it. Ive liked him form he first time I sat on him. I think he is very good.--Eibar Coa
Oct. 27, Grade I Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Monmouth Park, 1 1/16 Mile. The not-so-good news was that Tale of Ekati finished fourth. The bad news was that he was beaten 17 1/2 lengths by War Pass. He worked really fast, too fast, just before the Cup, and trainer Tagg was not happy going into the Cup..
TOMCITO (KY)
Breeder: Chesapeake Farm & Darley
Trainer: Dante Zanelli
Owner: Stud Jet Set
Sire (Sires Sire, Dam): Street Cry (Machiavellian, Helen Street)
Dam (Dams Sire, Dam): Inside or Outside (Eastern Echo, Dramatical)
Dosage Profile (Points) Index: 6-3-9-0-0 (18) 3.00
Foal Date: 2-13-05
Performance at Age Three
There's no comparison (to Cannonero II). They were two different horses. It was a different case for Canonero, because (his connections) knew what they had. That might be the case for our horse, but we're in a different place.--Trainer Dante Zanelli, speaking the week of March 16
March 29, Grade I Florida Derby, Gulfstream Park, 1 1/8 Mile. Tomcito was third to Big Brown, but he was beaten over 12 lengths. It was his first start of the year, so he really did not do too badly.
April 19, Grade II Coolmore Lexington Stakes, Keeneland, 1 1/16 Mile. Tomcito didn't have much early speed, nor did he close into fast fractions, and that resulted in a sixth-place finish, beaten almost four lengths.
May 10, Grade II Peter Pan Stakes, Belmont Park, 1 1/8 Mile. Tomcito failed to menace and finished seventh. He was not positioned better than fifth at any point during the race.
Performance at Age Two
On Nov. 17, Tomcito won the Grade I Peruvian Derby Nacional, at about 1 1/2 mile, as a 2-year-old racing against Southern Hemisphere-bred 3-year-olds--he was regarded as a 3-year-old under their foaling schedule. The time for his 3 1/2-length win was 2:35.40.
He also won the Grade I Classico Ricardo Ortiz de Zevallos at about 10 furlongs by 9 3/4 lengths on Oct. 20--timed in 2:09.60.
He was second in the Grade I Polla de Potrillos - Roberto Alvarez Calderón, the Peruvian 2000 Guineas, on Sept. 23. That race was about a mile; he was clocked in 1:39.80.
By Jeremy Plonk
Who Is Rick Dutrow?Add Patrick Reynolds to an ever-growing list. Reynolds, the original trainer of Big Brown, stands on the sidelines as Rick Dutrow prepares the would-be champion for a historic run at the Belmont Stakes. You may recall a similar fate a year ago for Helen Pitts, who trained the Preakness champion Curlin to open his career before a private sale sent the would-be stable star packing.
But this column is not going where you think it is.
No, we're not here to lament the losses of Pitts and Reynolds and play the "what if" card from racing's sob-story deck. In fact, the ever-growing list that Reynolds has joined isn't about Triple Crown race winners who changed addresses, but rather trainers who have seen their one-time stable reps blossom in the shedrow of Rick Dutrow.
To say that Dutrow's most important career successes have been complete resurrection projects would be a stretch in most cases. Many of the newcomers had shown promise, and slick-moving owners with vast checkbooks swooped in at opportune times. But there's absolutely no disputing that Big Brown's trainer has been down this road before, picking up a live horse and taking him or her to astronomical levels.
Movin' On Up
Dutrow has trained a total of nine Grade 1 stakes winners in his career, with Big Brown the latest and Carson Hollow's 2002 victory in the Prioress at Belmont the first. Of those nine Grade 1 winners, an astounding eight of them began their careers with other trainers. Only Carson Hollow developed into a Grade 1 winner exclusively under Dutrow's tutelage.
Sis City, winner of the 2005 Ashland, was claimed from the Steve Asmussen barn at Saratoga in her third lifetime start. Outside of Carson Hollow and Sis City, the other seven Dutrow ascendants to Grade 1 glory came via private purchase or trainer change. The list includes the likes of Big Brown and 2005 Horse of the Year Saint Liam, who was just 2-for-8 for trainer Tony Reinstedler prior to moving day. Also toss in a few eventual Breeders' Cup champions, Kip Deville (Mike Neatherlin) and Silver Train (George Mikhalides), who had 14 combined lifetime starts and no graded stakes wins before Dutrow's touch.
A detailed look at all the Grade 1 winners for Dutrow is included at the bottom of this column.
Who Are These Guys?
The Dutrow projects almost universally seem to do it without pedigree. Big Brown hails from an un-ballyhooed family led by sire Boundary, whose 11 seasons prior to being pensioned in 2005 were topped by sprinter Pomeroy. Boundary was exclusively a sprinter, and Big Brown's successes at 1-1/4 miles and 1-3/16 miles certainly aren't attributable to his gene pool.
Meanwhile, Dutrow's BC Mile winner Kip Deville, an Oklahoma-bred, is by little-known stallion Kipling. Sis City was by Slew City Slew, whose breeding portfolio pretty much begins and ends with Lava Man.
And here's a five-spot if you can name the sire of G1 DeFrancis Dash and G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen winner Benny the Bull. Stop it: you didn't get Lucky Lionel. Who? Exactly.
Others from the Pick-Up Game
Below the cusp of the Grade 1 winners, Dutrow also has enjoyed graded-stakes success with a host of other pick-ups. Take, for instance, Offlee Wild, winner of the G2 Massachusetts Handicap and a one-time member of the barn of respected Midwestern old-timer T.V. Smith.
Then there's his elite sprint mare Oprah Winney, G2 winner of the Barbara Fritchie Handicap and an original cast member with the Anthony Ferraro barn at Calder. Want more? Graded-stakes winner Thunder Blitz re-found glory in his final two starts after moving from Joe Orseno and Bobby Frankel to Dutrow's shedrow, going out a graded stakes winner in his final career start after seemingly falling off form.
Day One Dandies
To his credit, Dutrow has crafted the entire career of G2 Meadowlands Cup and G2 Godolphin Mile winner Diamond Stripes, as well as G2 Pennsylvania Derby winner Love of Money. Those victories, paired with the graded-stakes successes of Carson Hollow, mark the top-rung victories achieved by horses Dutrow has trained from day one of their racing careers.
Explaining The Phenomenon
The Dutrow family long has been in the horse buying and selling business. It's the mentality taught by Dickie Dutrow to his sons, Rick and Tony. Dickie Dutrow was a dominant trainer in the mid-Atlantic who moved stock in and out of the barn in great numbers. He won what was then a North American record 352 races in 1975.
Rick Dutrow himself made his first impressions in the game through the claiming box; so he cut his teeth as a horseman with new acquisitions on a regular basis. It's also well-known that most of Dutrow's owners through the years have been players in the buy-and-sell game, not those with split-railed breeding farms or front-row seats at the yearling sales. The stock a trainer gets is directly in relation to the kind of owners he or she may have.
The two explanations above answer the question as to why Dutrow has come to train these types of horses in his barn. But they do not explain how he so often has moved his runners from the ranks of decent or promising to superstar. That's a pandora's box with more questions than answers.
Skeptics will cite Dutrow's past run-ins with medication infractions, and/or his recent, open admission that he gives his horses the steroid Winstrol on a monthly basis, not for any other reason, he says, than it's legal to do so.
Whether or not you believe Rick Dutrow develops these new horses to his barn through superior horsemanship or better medicine, or a combination of both, it's impossible to overlook the fact that every Grade 1 winner he's had since Carson Hollow in 2002 had started his or her career in another barn.
Dutrow's Career Grade 1 Winners
Benny The Bull
Former trainer: Jeff Talley
Status when he arrived in barn: 4-8 lifetime; won $125,000 Prairie Meadows Sprint with 108 Beyer and 111 Beyer in previous allowance win; never tried graded stakes yet. Picked up in July of 4-year-old year.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2007 DeFrancis Dash, 2008 Golden Shaheen
Current status: active.
Big Brown
Former trainer: Patrick Reynolds
Status when he arrived in barn: 1-1 lifetime; won Saratoga maiden special weight race on the turf by 11-1/4 lengths with 90 Beyer.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2008 Florida Derby, 2008 Kentucky Derby, 2008 Preakness
Current status: active.
Carson Hollow
Former trainer: none.
Status when she arrived in barn: with Dutrow throughout, winning first four starts en route to 10: 6-3-0 career. Also a G2, G3 winner.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2002 Prioress, the first Grade 1 win of the trainer's career.
Current status: died due to complications from colic surgery after her racing career had ended.
Kip Deville
Former trainer: Michael Neatherlin
Status when he arrived in barn: 4-8 lifetime, including 2 listed stakes in Texas. 9th, beaten 15-1/2 lengths by Lawyer Ron in G3 Rebel, only graded try. Picked up in June of 3-year-old year.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2007 Kilroe Mile, 2007 Breeders' Cup Mile, 2008 Maker's Mark Mile.
Current status: active.
Saint Liam
Former trainer: Tony Reinstedler
Status when he arrived in barn: 2-8 lifetime with 0-3 mark in stakes races, registering 100 Beyer, career-best, in Churchill allowance win. Beaten 27 lengths in 2 career graded stakes tries. Picked up in August of 3-year-old year.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2005 Donn, 2005 Stephen Foster, 2005 Woodward, 2005 Breeders'
Cup Classic.
Current status: After entering stud at Lane's End, he died in 2006 after slipping and falling, suffering an untreatable leg fracture. He had 115 mares in foal prior to his passing.
Sis City
Former trainer: Steve Asmussen
Status when she arrived in barn: 0-2 prior to $50,000 claiming race win in which Dutrow
claimed her. Picked up in August of her 2-year-old season.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2005 Ashland.
Current status: broodmare for Stonerside Farm; first foal arrived 4/24/08, a colt by Distorted Humor.
Silver Train
Former trainer: George Mikhalides
Status when he arrived in barn: 1-6 lifetime, finishing 4th by 13-1/2 lengths in only career stakes try in Champagne at age two, never topping 85 Beyer. Picked up in May of 3-year-old season.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2005 Breeders' Cup Sprint, 2006 Met Mile.
Current status: retired, entered stud in 2007 at Vinery.
Silver Wagon
Former trainer: Ralph Ziadie
Status when he arrived in barn: 3-14 and winner of the Grade 1 Hopeful as age 2. Lost last 10 stakes tries prior to Dutrow move. Picked up in November of 4-year-old year. (Also bounced back to Ziadie for two unsuccessful Florida starts during winter of '05-'06.)
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2007 Carter.
Current status: retired, entered stud in 2008 at Hurricane Hall.
Wonder Lady Anne L.
Former trainer: Tim Ritvo
Status when he arrived in barn: 1-3 lifetime, exiting a third-start maiden breaker at Calder by 9 lengths. Picked up in June of her 2-year-old season.
Grade 1 wins with Dutrow: 2006 Coaching Club of America Oaks
Current status: retired in early 2007 to catch that spring's breeding season and delivered a Giant's Causeway foal this year.
BY JERRY BOSSERT
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Wednesday, May 21st 2008, 6:45 PM
Fit the Crown for Big Brown.
"I'll be in the winner's circle when they get to the quarter pole," trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. said Wednesday morning during a press conference should Big Brown run his race in the June 7 Belmont Stakes.
The Derby and Preakness winner made his return to the track Wednesday morning when he jogged a lap around Belmont's mile-and-a-half oval.
As for Peter Pan Stakes winner Casino Drive, the clear-cut second choice, the trainer has no fear.
"No chance," Dutrow said of the Japanese invader.
Dutrow also claimed that a win in the Belmont wouldn't necessarily signal the end of the racing career of the 3-year-old son of Boundary.
"I'm expecting to train him through the Travers and the Breeders' Cup Classic," the 48-year-old conditioner said.
There has been much speculation that Big Brown would be retired if he wins the Belmont.
Meanwhile, Casino Drive continues to thrive, according to Nobutaka Tada, the racing manager for owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto, since winning the May 10th Peter Pan Stakes.
"We don't know if we spoil or not," Tada said of Big Brown's Triple Crown try. "I just try to keep him happy. That's my concern."
Tada said Casino Drive would probably work on Wednesday, and he will probably name a jockey within the next couple of days.
Kent Desormeaux rode Casino Drive in the Peter Pan but is the regular jockey for Big Brown.
Edgar Prado, Garrett Gomez, Victor Espinoza all have been floated as possible jockeys, along with Japan's own Yutaka Take, who rode Casino Drive to victory in his debut.
"We'll see what is best for the Belmont Stakes," Tada said.
Casino Drive will not race on any medication for the Belmont as he did in his Peter Pan victory.
"No medication," Tada said. "He runs to the best of his ability without medication."
Dutrow admits to giving Big Brown the steroid Winstrol on the 15th of every month because it is legal in New York.
"I don't see it being a problem," Dutrow said.
Tada thinks steroids are a major concern in the sport.
"There are no steroids in Japan," he said. "For the future of the industry it's a problem. We keep the horse natural. We want his natural ability when he becomes a stallion."
"Nike is ecstatic to sign the top star in horseracing," CEO and Nike president Mike Parker said, unveiling the "jumphorse" logo as the Kentucky-bred colt trotted onstage. "From Michael Jordan to Tiger Woods, Nike has created formidable partnerships with the very best in sports. I can't say how proud we are to work with B.B., who is an extraordinary individual both on and off the track."
"Big B doesn't complain when he gets the far outside starting gate position," Parker added. "He just gallops. And he gives hope to everyone out there that if they train hard, push themselves, and keep their snout clean, they can accomplish anything."
Big Brown, whose Nike endorsement deal is the largest ever for a thoroughbred, was flown from New York to Portland in a private Nike jet stocked with the world's finest bourbon, caviar, sugar cubes, cigars, carrots, and hay. Upon arriving on the west coast, the equine superstar's handlers whisked him past a throng of cheering fans into a stretch limousine bound for Nike headquarters, where Brown, his 11-horse entourage, and his team of lawyers reviewed the contract one last time before signing.
Slated for release on June 1, the lightweight, U-shaped Air Brown horseshoe features Nike's patented air-cushioning system, consisting of a pressurized gas encapsulated in polyurethane and aluminum. According to Nike engineers, the innovative technology was created to provide equal measures of comfort, support, and performance on both dirt and grass tracks by reducing shock, distributing pressure, and protecting the hooves from overpronation. Big Brown intends to debut the Air Brown horseshoes on June 7 at the Belmont Stakes, when he attempts to become the first horse to win the elusive Triple Crown in 30 years.
Although Big Brown was approached by a number of suitors from sportswear manufacturers including Adidas, Reebok, and Pony, the undefeated 3-year-old was ultimately won over by Nike's willingness to work closely with him to create a horseshoe conforming to his strong sense of personal style as well as his physical needs. Big Brown was reportedly impressed by Nike's efforts when technicians used cameras to record his gait from multiple angles while he ran on a treadmill.
"Because Big Brown's hooves have been prone to injuries, we created 3D computer models to map out their exact size and shape in order to design a customized horseshoe that fits perfectly," Nike technician Kenneth Phillips said. "We've also determined he can reduce the risk of impact injuries during his workouts by exercising on a quartet of stationary elliptical machines."
Nike marketing personnel said that throughout the design process, Big Brown has viewed his trademark sportswear as a lifestyle rather than a line of products bearing his image. Whether approving design sketches or choosing materials, the racehorse has emphasized the promotion of individual identity by insisting the Air Brown buyer should be able to customize their horseshoes with alternate color schemes, optional blinking LEDs, or Swarovski crystals.
"B-Squared brings a lot of energy to this projectyou should see him cantering around in a frenzy, ranging back and forth in the studio space," Parker said. "He's really exposing a side of himself that many people haven't seen before. He's showing everyone that he's for real."
While some critics have insinuated that Big Brown is too young and lacks experience, Parker confirmed his company's confidence in the colt's potential when he pointed out that the racehorse is undefeated in all five of his career starts and yet still takes time to volunteer in the community.
"We signed Jordan when he was just a rookie and brought LeBron on before he even played in the NBA," Parker said. "Those guys turned out great. Well, B.B. is like three Kobe Bryants, two LaDainian Tomlinsons, and an Alex Rodriguez all rolled up in one. "
"Big B might be an upstanding citizen, but he's totally rock 'n' roll," Parker added. "You never know if he's going to come out of the gate with a green, purple, natural, or orange mane."
Despite being overwhelmed with pre-orders of Air Browns, Nike has maintained that Big Brown's new casual line, the B2 Titanium HorseNeaks, would be available for purchase in August.
Pletcher said Ready's Echo is still in the mix for the Belmont. A decision is still pending
Click-2-Listen
By HAL HABIB
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 22, 2008
HIALEAH This is the place where the local TV stations sent news crews to cover the trimming of the palm trees to usher in the racing season. This is where a horse, who received 20 letters per day, was given the key to the city, although he surely was infinitely more interested in the carrots and sugar cubes dangling from that key. This wasn't just a lavish place to die for, but a place for the dead, home to the ashes of more than 200 patrons.
This is Hialeah Park, site of a great tragedy in American horse racing.
Seven years ago this week, no horse died here.
One of the most beautiful tracks in the world did.
As the sun began to set on May 22, 2001, Cheeky Miss won the final race and a few thousand hard cores filed out one last time from a place whose opulence and history were run down in the stretch by the relentless charge of inaccessibility and industry infighting.
Forget for a moment the hows and whys. Forget the ample blame tossed upon owner John Brunetti, who for seven years has kept the gates to this palace locked, which even he concedes shouldn't be. Instead, consider that two Saturdays from now, when Big Brown is expected to become the 12th Triple Crown champion, the eyes of the sports world - not just the horse racing world - will be on Belmont Park.
In Hialeah's time, that was routine.
Truman, LBJ, DiMaggio, Capone, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor - they all came here. The Kennedys? Why, of course the Kennedys came, boarding that special train that the highest of Palm Beach's high society rode from the island directly to Hialeah's clubhouse.
Never again.
That's the honest answer to the first question that invariably comes up when that romantic era of Hialeah Park is mentioned: Will they ever resume racing here? Is there even the slightest chance? The odds flicker from none to slim, though you won't find them on the toteboard here. That was long washed away by a barrage of hurricanes that left a bizarre juxtaposition among a grandstand, clubhouse and track surface in disrepair while the famed paddock area remains in near-pristine condition.
Brunetti says he spends about $1 million annually on paddock upkeep but estimates it would take as much as $30 million to restore the rest of the facility for racing. As a developer, he has proposed using part of the grounds for residential purposes while converting the heart of the racing area, including the grandstand, into a racing museum and amphitheater.
Various plans have been on the drawing board for so long, it's pointless to dwell on what will be.
All everybody knows is what Hialeah is today - off-limits - isn't what it should be. Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito, whose horses hold two Hialeah records: "Oh, you talk about history - I would call it the queen mother. Hialeah is as good as any track in America."
Alex Fuentes would love to speak of Hialeah in present tense someday, too.
Fuentes, 31, is head of Citizens to Save Hialeah Park, having fallen in love with the venue even though he never saw a race there. Two weeks ago, Brunetti floated his newest idea, of donating the clubhouse, grandstand and paddock to the city, which could turn it into a park.
"All big cities have a central park; I view this as our central park," says Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina, who believes there is enough land to combine that park space with residential and commercial development.
"The park was open before the city was incorporated and it tells the story of Hialeah and its rich history. It's important to preserve that for future generations."
Brunetti's proposal surprised Fuentes, who hopes the 11/8-mile track can be included, admitting that perhaps 10 years into the future, after the buildings have been restored, it might be feasible to have a 20- to 30-day "boutique" racing meet at Hialeah.
"It's one of the crazy ideas I have," Fuentes says. "It can be a very nice, niche meet."
Brunetti says such romantic notions come from those who "don't know the economics of racing," particularly the never-ending battles with Calder and Gulfstream over prime winter dates. Brunetti says he is asked about reopening Hialeah whenever he visits Calder or Gulfstream.
"My answer to them, particularly with the horsemen, has always been, 'Where were you when I needed you?''' Brunetti says. At age 77, Brunetti, viewed as Hialeah's savior when he bought the facility in 1977, is weary of fighting.
He acknowledges critics "blamed everything" on him but remains sensitive when the subject shifts from him to his track.
"Obviously I'm not happy or proud of this," he says while escorting a reporter through the park. "I hope you use a little discretion on how you handle it. This is part of my family."
Seven years of mourning, and he's still not done.
"You want to know something?" Brunetti says. "I don't think I'm over it yet."
The only comparable track, most agree, is Saratoga in New York. Former Sports Illustrated racing writer Bill Nack calls Hialeah a "national treasure" that the Department of the Interior should transform into a tourist attraction.
"Hialeah is the Saratoga of winter racing, or it always was the place where rich people gathered and had a lot of fun," Nack says. "They did it in a beautiful setting with the winds of history at your back. It was the same feeling at Hialeah in the winter as it was at Saratoga in the summer."
In 1958, The Miami News quoted a local teacher telling her students, "A year is divided into four seasons . . . spring, summer, fall and Hialeah."
In this golden age, Calder didn't exist and as far as Palm Beach was concerned, it didn't matter that Gulfstream was closer. Two of Hialeah's founding fathers were Palm Beach's Joseph Widener and E.R. Bradley, who dispatched designers to borrow architectural and botanical concepts from Monaco, Paris, England and, yes, Saratoga. In a particular stroke of genius, flamingos were imported from Cuba for the infield lake. Soon, noble male patrons flocked the track wearing pink suits.
"Hialeah was built for Palm Beach," Brunetti says. "You had so many of those great families, particularly in racing, that were up in Palm Beach and you had the train that brought them all down here. It became a social event, an hour ride on the train."
Some came for the racing, some for the rice pudding, but everyone came to feel special. This was an age when uniformed policemen saluted as each car rolled down the famous tree-lined driveway. A time when if you stood up, ushers tapped you on the shoulder, a quiet reminder there were ladies and gentlemen behind you.
"If you had diamonds," Joe Hirsch, famed columnist for the Daily Racing Form once said, "you wore them at Hialeah."
Nothing shined like the horses: War Admiral. Whirlaway. Assault. Citation. Seattle Slew.
Triple Crown winners, all. And Nashua, the 1955 Horse of the Year who was expected to draw perhaps 35,000 when he ran in the '56 Widener Handicap. He didn't. A record 42,366 attended. Then again, 33 photographers captured him receiving the key to the city upon arrival.
"The most-publicized equine journey since Paul Revere," The New York Times reported.
An hour before that big race, an elderly woman went to Hialeah's security office, saying she wanted to buy a ticket on Nashua "before they're all gone." In the end, Nashua rewarded both novice and veteran bettors.
Wagering sometimes was an adventure at Hialeah, which began holding races six years before betting on the sport was legalized in Florida. Until then, you purchased "buying options" in a horse, and if he won, your stock paid dividends.
It's a quirky part of history in a track laden with it. On Jan. 15, 1925, the original track opened to a packed audience of 7,000, none of whom, it must be hoped, were in the infield. That was a snake pit. On good days, a full-time snake-catcher, known as Rattlesnake Pete, was said to collect 60 slithering specimens.
In bygone eras, Hialeah wasn't just for horses, but home to dog racing, a jai-alai fronton and a roller coaster. In its final years, the paddock area housed an aviary and aquarium.
"It was one of those places where all the old, great trainers got together," Nack says. "Woody Stephens and all the guys that had a long history. . . . LeRoy Jolley, they all loved Hialeah. It was their favorite place. Bill Hartack used to have a place, I think in Miami Springs Villas, and he used to have parties all the time. People told me every stewardess within five miles was at Bill Hartack's parties after the races."
As long ago as the mid-'70s, before Brunetti's arrival, speculation began that Hialeah could be in peril. Eventually, perception became reality as the railway ceased operation and drivers found Gulfstream and Calder more accessible. Brunetti also blames Hialeah's demise on rival tracks threatening horsemen with a loss of stalls if they ran at Hialeah.
The hurricanes did the rest of the damage, peeling back corrugated steel from the roof of the grandstand and blowing out windows. The remains of the barns were demolished years ago. The racing surface is so overgrown it's a challenge to discern the turf and dirt courses.
Walking through the grandstand is akin to touring the Titanic. To look beyond nature's wrath is to appreciate the finest in Mediterranean architecture. The iconic Citation statue remains, although its surrounding fountain is bone dry. The flamingos are still there, fed daily by Brunetti's staff.
MINUTES TO POST. That's what a sign near the mutuel windows says, wishfully, wistfully. Deep into May 22, 2001, it counted down, 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 to the race won by Cheeky Miss. Then it went dark. Brunetti knows part of his legacy is he's the one who turned out the lights.
"People say to me, 'How do you think they're going to treat you, John?''' he says. "You know what? I only hope that I'm gone by the time that they do it, so I don't have to read it, good or bad."
Picturing happier times isn't difficult.
"We pine over it," he says of himself and his staff. "I used to love on Saturdays, walking from one end to the other, seeing all the cars coming in.
"I could tell by how many cars were lined up by the second or third race how many people we had.''
Today, the driveways are vacant. There are no horses. No handicappers. Only gates locking people out and paradise lost in.
Says Brunetti: "I try to just close it out of my mind."
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Big Brown already has done more than most Triple Crown winners.
At least, thats one way to look at his dominating victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Of course, looking at it that way requires a momentary emphasis on the quantity rather than the quality of his opposition. With his two wins, Big Brown has defeated a total of 30 horses in the first two races of the famed series. (That, of course, counts Gayego twice since he ran in both races.)
War Admiral defeated 32 starters to sweep the Triple Crown in 1937, and Assault beat 31 in 1946. Theyre the only two Triple Crown winners who defeated more starters, or horses, in the three races of the series than Big Brown already has beaten in the first two legs of it. (Sir Barton defeated 24 in 1919; Gallant Fox, 27 in 1930; Omaha, 29 in 1935; Whirlaway, 20 in 1941; Count Fleet, 14 in 1943; Citation, 15 in 1948; Secretariat, 21 in 1973; Seattle Slew, 29 in 1977; and Affirmed, 20 in 1978.)
Field size obviously has added greatly to the difficulty of sweeping the Triple Crown. More than ever, the Triple Crown, and especially the Kentucky Derby, has become the focus of the entire sport. The Breeders Cup folks like to point out that their event is the Super Bowl of horse racing, and it is, if by that they mean it determines championships. But in terms of getting the eye of the entire nation, intruding on the popular awareness and transfixing the attention of even the most casual fans, the sport has only the Triple Crown.
And so owners and breeders, at least those with the resources to support such lofty dreams and ambitions, aim for the Kentucky Derby from the instant they buy a horse or match a mare with a stallion. Early each year, people spend millions chasing after Triple Crown prospects. For many, just getting there is the goal, arriving there at Churchill Downs with a chance for glory and with an opportunity to share, however tangentially, in one of sports great events, to be close to one of its most magical and uplifting moments.
Thats why since 1978, the Kentucky Derby has averaged 17.2 starters. It has had 20 each of the last four years. Of course, this is a modern phenomenon. Modernity has more vanity than pride. Not long ago, it would have been embarrassing to start a horse with virtually no chance in the Derby. Having frightened away most of the competition, Citation defeated only five rivals in his Kentucky Derby. In fact, the 11 Kentucky Derbies that began the Triple Crown sweeps averaged 13.5 starters.
But for the 11 horses since 1978 who have won the first two races in the series, including Big Brown, the Kentucky Derby has averaged 16.5 starters. Their Preaknesses averaged 10.3 starters, compared to 7.9 for the Triple Crown winners. Of course, 10 of those horses failed to win their Belmont, which averaged in those years 9.4 starters, compared to 5.5 for the Belmonts of the Triple Crown winners.
Because of their reputations for invincibility, some Triple Crown winners apparently had a rather easy go of it after the Derby. Count Fleet defeated only three horses when he won the Preakness, and only two when he won the Belmont. Affirmeds Belmont had only five starters, and Whirlaways only four.
By the third race in the series, they had proven their dominance, and few stepped forward to take them on. But 10, I see, could line up against Big Brown at Belmont Park. He could sweep the series without having defeated a truly top horse, but if he succeeds on June 7 he will at least have beaten more horses than any other Triple Crown winner in history.
In front of an empty grandstand at Belmont Park, Kent Desormeaux spent Wednesday afternoon riding forgettable horses in forgettable races. There will be plenty of days like this between now and June 7, when Desormeaux and Big Brown tackle racings biggest challenge, completing the Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes.
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John Dunn for The New York Times
Kent Desormeaux, who revived his career in New York, will try to make history with Big Brown.
But even on a day when he failed to win in three tries, Desormeaux had no complaints. He loves riding, and he loves riding in New York.
This is my day job, and I love it, Desormeaux, 38, said between races. I amp up to ride. I love riding. Each and every day I show up here with the simple goal of wanting to win a race.
There was energy in his every step and passion in his voice, things that were hard to find when Desormeaux was struggling to win races in California earlier this decade. A Hall of Famer with a long list of accomplishments, including two Kentucky Derby victories and two Eclipse Awards as the nations outstanding jockey, Desormeaux was on the decline. For reasons he says he does not understand, he found himself having a hard time getting good mounts, and that affected his attitude. He was caught in a downward spiral from which he could not escape.
I wasnt getting good mounts and I wasnt winning, Desormeaux said. So I got sour, started sulking and getting upset. No one wants to be around someone who is sulking and upset. They want to be around someone who is happy. It just gets worse. I had to get away from it.
Always on the outlook for an opportunity, Desormeaux was successful during three stints in Japan, but he knew riding there was not a permanent solution. Wanting to build his business back up in the United States and seeking to establish roots somewhere, he came to New York two years ago.
The move turned his career around. New York trainers and owners were willing to give him a second chance. He is now riding regularly for some of the top trainers in New York, like Bill Mott, and for some of the sports leading owners. Led by Big Brown, Desormeauxs mounts have earned nearly $7 million this year, good for second place behind Garrett Gomez as the top-earning jockey in the nation.
Coming to New York has to be the reason, Desormeaux said of his resurgence. If I dont come to New York, I dont find Big Brown. If I dont come to New York, Im not riding for Zayat Stable and Bill Mott. Riding for them has encouraged everyone else in the East to support me. The three things a big horse, a big stable and a big owner I wouldnt have any of them if I had stayed on the West Coast.
From Maurice, La. (population 642), Desormeaux would seem to be out of place in New York, but he has embraced living here. He has a home in Garden City on Long Island and is a frequent visitor to Manhattan.
I love it here, he said. If youve never been on vacation here, youve got to go to Manhattan. Youll leave the place so charged. Theres so much energy there. Now, its only 30 minutes away. If I ever feel like I need a little pick-up, I get on the train and head to Manhattan, and by the time I leave that place, I am dreaming again, Ive got goals again. I go there, and I get recharged.
He is able to head into Manhattan on Mondays and Tuesdays, dark days at the New York tracks. The rest of the week is for business, even if that means slogging through races that do not offer much excitement or reward.
It may seem mundane or anticlimactic, but its the only way to keep getting the good horses, he said. You have to show up here every day and ride the hair off the $35,000 claimer.
That impresses trainers, who want someone who tries hard every day and has the skills to win consistently. That is what Desormeaux has done since he came here, and that is why someone like Big Browns trainer, Rick Dutrow, knows he can count on him. Dutrow gives him good mounts, and Desormeaux delivers good rides, just as he did in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
All that is left now is the Belmont Stakes, New Yorks biggest racing event and the type of race that makes it all worthwhile. Desormeaux can already sense what winning will feel like.
I think Ill be like a beacon of light, he said. Honestly, Ill be overwhelmed with joy.
On Sunday, it was revealed that unbeaten Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness S. (G1) winner BIG BROWN (Boundary) has developed a "slight" quarter-crack on the inside of his front left hoof, but trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. said he was confident the horse will be "100 percent" when he goes for the Triple Crown in the 140th running of Belmont S. (G1) on June 7.
"We didn't know until Saturday that it was a quarter-crack," explained Dutrow, who said he first noticed an issue with the colt's hoof Friday afternoon. "It scares us this happened, but this has nothing to do with his ability to finish what he started.
"It's bad it happened, but it's good it happened now. He's going to be OK."
Big Brown remained in his barn Saturday and Sunday under the care of hoof specialist Ian McKinlay.
"This is a very, very minor crack," said McKinlay, who added that the crack was about five-eighths of an inch long. "We will put a set of wires in and patch it up."
Big Brown has suffered from foot problems before, but Dutrow said it was the first time he has developed a quarter-crack, which is a vertical crack in the hoof wall between the toe and heel of the hoof. Big Brown's hoof is currently being treated with a solution of iodine and alcohol and will be patched Monday with a set of wires and mesh, McKinlay said.
"The horse is doing fine, he's eating up, he's walking the shedrow two times a day," Dutrow said. "If the race was today, or yesterday, or tomorrow, it would not be an issue. Because we have the time we've addressed the issue the right way."
Dutrow said plans were going forward for Big Brown to breeze Saturday as he prepares for the 1 1/2-mile Belmont, in which he is attempting to become just the 12th horse, and the first in 30 years, to win the Triple Crown.
"Ian keeps telling me it's nothing and he'll be fine in a couple of days, that he will be able to fix it up by Thursday," Dutrow said. "I am sure he will be 100 percent, yes. If we get to breeze him Tuesday of Belmont week, or even Wednesday, we can live with that. Monday would be great, as long as Ian can get it done the right way."
Dutrow said the horse was perfectly comfortable and in fact was "bossing people around" in the barn.
"He's been as aggressive as I've seen him," said Dutrow of Big Brown, who has been walking the shedrow twice a day for 30 minutes at a time. "He's really been rank in the afternoon."
Big Brown's chief Belmont antagonist, Peter Pan S. (G2) winner CASINO DRIVE (Mineshaft), put in a brisk canter Sunday morning and Nobutaka Tada, racing manager for owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto, said the colt will have a serious move on Wednesday as he tries to follow in the footsteps of siblings Rags to Riches (A.P. Indy) and Jazil (Seeking the Gold), winners of the past two Belmonts.
Also on Wednesday, a rider will be named, according to Tada.
"We really appreciate how many good jockeys are interested in our horse," Tada said. "We need the right rider for the Belmont Stakes, whether it be Japanese, American, or European."
Leading candidates to ride Casino Drive are Yutaka Take, Edgar Prado and Garrett Gomez.
In other Belmont news:
Wood Memorial S. (G1) hero TALE OF EKATI (Tale of the Cat), fourth behind Big Brown in the Derby, is scheduled to have his penultimate breeze for the Belmont Monday morning, trainer Barclay Tagg said.
"He's bred well enough to handle the distance," Tagg noted. "He's a pretty nice horse. He's swift, he's tenacious, he's got a lot of courage, and he keeps on trying. If that's not a Belmont horse, I don't know what is."
That being said, Tagg had nothing but praise for the Belmont favorite, Triple Crown hopeful Big Brown.
"He's a heck of a horse and Rick (Dutrow) has done a heck of a job with him," Tagg said.
Also planning to work on Monday is Southwest S. (G3) victor DENIS OF CORK (Harlan's Holiday), who was last seen finishing third to Big Brown in the Run for the Roses. The blaze-faced bay, based with trainer David Carroll at Churchill Downs, is scheduled to breeze after the midsession break for track maintenance, which would put Denis of Cork on the track at around 8:20 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. (EDT).
Jockey Robby Albarado will be in the saddle for the work. Albarado, who rode Denis of Cork to victory in the Southwest, will renew their partnership in the Belmont. Calvin Borel had been aboard Denis of Cork in the Kentucky Derby.
Peruvian superstar TOMCITO (Street Cry [Ire]), who underwent a myectomy to correct a breathing problem after his seventh-place finish in the Peter Pan on May 10, remains day-to-day for the Belmont, according to trainer Dante Zanelli.
"So far he's doing OK," Zanelli said. "He galloped a mile and three-quarters this morning, went well, finished well. We need to see him continue to move forward."
Zanelli said the colt could breeze at Belmont this weekend, at which time a decision would be made.
According to New York Racing Association Stakes coordinator Andrew Byrnes, other probables for the Belmont include MACHO AGAIN (Macho Uno), ICABAD CRANE (Jump Start) and ANAK NAKAL (Victory Gallop). A decision on the Todd Pletcher-trained duo of READY'S ECHO (More Than Ready) and BEHINDATTHEBAR (Forest Wildcat) will be made by Monday, Byrnes said, and one on Casino Drive's stablemate, SPARK CANDLE (A.P. Indy), would be made later.
Gomez replaces Leparoux on Macho Again
Preakness S. (G1) runner-up MACHO AGAIN (Macho Uno) will have a new rider in his expected rematch with unbeaten Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness winner BIG BROWN (Boundary) in the $1 million Belmont S. (G1) on June 7 at Belmont Park.
Garrett Gomez, the Eclipse Award winner as America's top jockey in 2007, has been named to replace Julien Leparoux aboard the three-year-old in the 1 1/2-mile final jewel of the Triple Crown.
Trainer Dallas Stewart said the decision by West Point Thoroughbreds to give the mount to Gomez should not reflect negatively on Leparoux, who had ridden Macho Again in four of his last five races and had won two of those.
"Julien has done a great job with him," Stewart said. "But after talking with (West Point Thoroughbreds' managing partner) Terry Finley and the owners, it was a decision based more on a 'home court advantage' for the rider. Gomez is a New York rider and he knows that mile-and-a-half track. That's not taking anything away from Julien or anything, but Gomez rides there every day and he's going to ride a bunch on the card.
"We're going up there trying to win it, not that we think we couldn't win it with Julien," Stewart added. "Terry just felt that it would give us a little bit of an edge to have someone that rides there every day."
Gomez leads the nation's riders with more than $7.4 million in earnings on the year.
Macho Again will enter the Belmont with a career record of 9-3-3-0 and earnings of $343,761. He captured the April 26 Derby Trial S. at Churchill Downs prior to finishing second in the Preakness.
In other Belmont news:
Trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. will meet with the media on Sunday at 11 a.m. (EDT) in Barn 2 to discuss Big Brown's bid to become the 12th Triple Crown winner in the Belmont.
Also scheduled to meet with the press is Nobutaka Tada, managing director for Globe Equine Management Ltd. and spokesperson for the connections of Belmont hopeful CASINO DRIVE (Mineshaft), who captured the Peter Pan S. (G2) recently. Tada's meeting will take place in the Belmont Caf? at approximately 8:15 a.m.
Tada announced Saturday that Casino Drive will have a strong gallop around 7 a.m. Sunday, weather permitting, with his serious workout coming on Wednesday. A decision on the chestnut's rider in the Belmont has been pushed back until Wednesday as well.
Also Wednesday, said Tada, a rider will be named.
We really appreciate how many good jockeys are interested in our horse, said Tada. We need the right rider for the Belmont Stakes, whether it be Japanese, American, or European.
Leading candidates to ride Casino Drive are Yutaka Take and Edgar Prado. Garrett Gomez had been mentioned, but he's taken the mount on rival Macho Again.
So far hes doing OK, said Zanelli. He galloped a mile and three-quarters this morning, went well, finished well. We need to see him continue to move forward.
Zanelli said the colt would breeze soon, after which a decision would be made.
Steve Asmussen said he was offended. And he doesnt offend easily.
Richard Dutrow Jr., the trainer of Big Brown, recently said in The Daily Racing Form that if the Kentucky Derby-Preakness winner meets Curlin, the reigning Horse of the Year, in the Breeders Cup Classic, their confrontation would be good for racing. But, Dutrow said, it wouldnt be so good for Curlin.
Asmussen, who, of course, trains Curlin, said he doubts Dutrows sincerity in making such comments. Dutrow has identified three possible races in Big Browns future the Belmont, Travers and Classic. Two of them are restricted to 3-year-olds; the other, the Classic, could be run on a synthetic surface at Santa Anita. A confrontation there would hardly be conclusive. Still, Asmussen said hes eager to take on Big Brown with Curlin.
First, we both have to take care of business, he said, referring to Big Browns upcoming start in the Belmont and Curlins in the Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs. After that, there are some great possibilities.
It would be great for racing, he continued, referring to a Curlin-Big Brown meeting, and Id love to be part of it. But I dont want to talk about it, and I dont want to hear a lot of worthless opinions about it. The proof is on the racetrack. I just want to beat him.
I was waiting in the chow line inside the Pimlico Racecourse press box on Preakness Day and overheard a conversation between two veteran and highly reputable horse-racing writers.
If he wins the Preakness, do you want him to win the Triple Crown? the one asked the other. No, the other answered.
And it has nothing to do with Big Brown. It very much has to do with some of the people surrounding him. Lets start with his outspoken trainer, Rick Dutrow.
Dutrow has a checkered past, not unlike many in life. So, that may not be as much of the issue as the comments he has made about Big Brown that border on arrogant.
And then, during a press conference, he addressed a revelation he made during NBCs pre-Preakness broadcast that all of his horses are injected monthly with the steroid Winstrol, according to a story that appeared on bloodhorse.com.
But the comment that has me scratching my head and wondering, at least a little bit about this guy, is that he doesnt really know what Winstrol does.
Wait a second. All your horses are injected with a steroid, which is still legal in New York where Dutrows horses are stabled, according to the bloodhorse.com story, and you dont know what it does to a horse?
Dutrow explained, in the bloodhorse.com story, that he knew Winstrol brightened a horses coat and sometimes increased appetite. Other than that, he didnt know and got a bit indignant after that, saying that people should be discussing the drug with veterinarians and New York racing officials and that he shouldnt be asked such questions.
He also again said that he had no idea what the drug was used for.
I can tell you a couple things from information that Ive compiled. First, any trainer worth a grain of salt would have a vet explain to them what a drug was all about before they allowed their horse to be injected.
Second, Winstrol is an anabolic steroid that is considered a very effective muscle enhancer for humans on a few Websites that I can best describe as being dedicated to how to dramatically increase muscle mass through steroids.
Third, Dutrow was accurate when he said that horses are given it to help with their appetites. But usually only when it is an issue.
Then there are issues surrounding International Equine Acquisitions Holdings, or IEAH, which owns 75 percent of Big Brown. Too many to get into within the space of this one column.
But the issues, according to what I have read on Websites, include very limited information on the 11-year Wall Street career that co-CEO Mark Iavorone claims, as well as the disgraced and criminal practices of their first trainer, who pleaded guilty to charges surrounding his partaking in a prohibited procedure known as milkshaking to an IEAH horse prior to running in a race it won.
These things certainly can make people cynical and the real victim is a very talented horse that has done nothing wrong.
Hopefully, those around him havent done anything wrong with him during this quest for the Triple Crown.
Trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. and hoof specialist Ian McKinlay said they are pleased with the progress Kentucky Derby/Preakness winner Big Brown showed today and that he remains on schedule for the Belmont Stakes on June 7.
This morning, we stopped and saw him early and a lot of heat had come out from yesterday, which is an excellent sign, McKinlay said. As usual, just a little bit of movement in that heel is enough to warm up the foot. As we look at him here, he is not as sensitive on the coronet band. Now, we just basically made a little trench and got him down to the wall, just about to the laminae; thats the sensitive part of the hoof. And we put in one set of sutures, which is like stitches, made of stainless steel wire, and we drew that crack together. And probably tomorrow, hell be in much better shape.
Of course, Rick will check him first thing in the morning," McKinlay said. "Im actually going to be at Monmouth, but everything should just keep progressing. What were trying to do is stabilize that heel so we can get quicker healing.
Big Brown was scheduled to put in a serious breeze on Saturday morning. Dutrow said that could be moved to Monday or Tuesday, but would not be made any earlier.
We can most likely jog him (tomorrow), but I dont want to do that, Dutrow said. I want Ian to look at him again before we actually go to the track. If he looks great tomorrow, I still wont jog him. I most likely will put Michelle (Nevin, exercise rider) on him and ride him around the shedrow. And I would be very happy if that happens. Its a little hiccup on the way over there, thats all it is. The time he has missed means nothing to me or him.
This could also be a very good thing because he burnt his heels (at Pimlico) and it gives him time to get over that. No way missing four, five or six days is going to affect the outcome and his racing ability when he runs.
McKinlay will follow up with Big Brown on Wednesday. "What we're trying to do is stabilize that heel so you get quicker healing," said McKinlay. "We've done what we can right now and it might be 48 hours before we see the full results in stabilizing the quarter. Once we know everything's under control, that stitch will be taken out, we'll clean up the whole area, replace the stitch, snug that crack back up, and cover it with a methacrylate adhesive."
Robby Albarado, who'll ride Denis of Cork in the Belmont Stakes, was in the saddle for the work. Calvin Borel rode Denis of Cork in the Derby.
Hes training beautifully, said Carroll. For two weeks after the Derby it just took him a little bit of time to get back on his feet and get his energy back, but the last week hes training beautifully. He had a good work last week, but this week we wanted a bit more from him. I just told Robby to let him go off twelves and let him finish up and gallop out, and he did everything beautifully.
Denis of Cork won the first three races of his career, including the Grade III Southwest Stakes, before he suffered his first setback in a fifth-place finish in the Grade II Illinois Derby. He rebounded from that disappointment with his strong run in the Kentucky Derby, when Borel took him from post 16 straight to the rail. In twentieth position early, the colt passed 17 horses to finish third, beaten 8 1/4 lengths.
Today's workout was the second work for Denis of Cork at Churchill Downs since the Kentucky Derby. He breezed five furlongs in 1:01 (5/31) on May 19 with jockey James Lopez in the irons.
He went really well, I thought it was a great work for him, said Albarado. It was a nice, long maintenance work. He went fast, too, and was within himself. Im excited about him and it sets him up great for the Belmont.
"Hes matured a lot and gotten a lot stronger. He must have a big set of lungs on him because he gallops out really well and he refuses to pull-up," Albarado said. "I mean he just wants to keep going and going. So I think the mile-and-a-half is going to be conducive to his style.
Well probably breeze him again on Sunday or Monday and then ship to Belmont, Carroll said. Hes a very steady type of horse. Hes not going to blow you away, but he is going to go about his business.
Asked if he had any reaction to the news about Big Brown, Carroll said: As long as its not Denis of Cork with a quarter crack, I really dont care. Seriously, that is something we all have had to deal with at one time or another. Fortunately, Big Brown is in excellent hands. Ian McKinlay is the best, and Ive known him for a long time. Im sure Big Brown will be okay, but I have enough to worry about with my own horse.
"Its a totally new dimension at a mile-and-a-half and a new set of fresh horses going at him," Carroll said. Im not going to count Denis of Cork out. Weve got a big chance and Im going to ride him with a chance.
Tale of Ekati was right on schedule--but not on target--for trainer Barclay Tagg today at Belmont Park, breezing six furlongs under Eibar Coa on the main track in 1:18.80 (1/3) on a track rated fast, but which was a little dull.
The work was decidedly different than the one Tale of Ekati had six days ago, when he went four furlongs in :46.80 (1/37), handily.
Tagg was far from happy with Tale of Ekatis workout. Two works before a Classic race, Tagg muttered, and this is not what I wanted. Its no wonder Im always in bad mood.
Tale of Ekati was set to put in his final Belmont Stakes work on Sunday. Stay tuned. Tagg said he didnt know what his plans would be now for the winner of Aqueducts Grade I Wood Memorial, who was fourth in the Kentucky Derby.
Ready's Echo, who's been listed as possible for the Belmont Stakes, breezed a liesurely four furlongs this morning for trainer Todd Pletcher at Big Sandy. He was sent out to the inner turf course, which was rated firm, for the move. He was timed in :51.00 (1/2).
Pletcher will make a decision on whether Ready's Echo and/or Behindatthebar will run in the Belmont Stakes shortly.
Also today, Anak Nakal worked four furlongs in a bullet :48.60 (1/14) at Saratoga's Oklahoma training track. It was the second work for Anak Nakal since his seventh-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. On May 18, trainer Nick Zito had Anak Nakal put in a similar move--four furlongs on the training track in :49.80 (6/21).
However, farrier Ian McKinlay was on hand with cautious words. Obviously were being cautious, but he is right on track, McKinlay said. He is not quick healer, as he has shown with his other injuries. Still, McKinlay said Big Browns hoof is improving.
Right now, everything is healing naturally, which is what you want to see, McKinlay said. There is a bit of a hole there, which is the best case scenario. The foot is cleaned out, and both feet had the same temperature, which is what you want to see. When one is warmer than the other is when you have a problem. The skin is drying right out and the horse seems fabulous.
The quarter crack, which was closed with a stainless steel suture on Monday, will be patched. McKinlay didnt say when that would be done but indicated that the procedure would take place close enough to the Belmont Stakes to maximize the chance it will stay in place up to and through the race.
Whats Up with Casino Drive? Todays workout for Casino Drive, planned since he won the Grade II Peter Pan on May 10, was a waterhaul by American standards, but maybe not according to methods employed by his Japanese connections.
Weve never seen anything quite like this. Fractional times for the five-furlong move were :17, :31 1/5, :45 4/5 and 1:12 2/5. Clockers said he galloped out six-furlongs in 1:25as it he were not galloping the whole way in the first place.
The time was so slow that its not being published as an official workout.
Predictably, Nobutaka Tada, racing manager for owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto, said he was OK with the move. We had him continue past the wire to the backstretch to the one-mile pole, Tada said. I know the clocking may not please everyone, but it was exactly what we wanted. The way he moved was very good, and his breath was really good after the work.
A comparable work may come this Sunday, or connections could opt to wait a week and try a more conventional workout.
At this post, an announcement about a Belmont Stakes jockey for Casino Drive is still pending.
Tomcito Works. Tomcito breezed seven furlongs this morning, timed in 1:29.80 (1/1) at Belmont. It was his first workout since a seventh-place finish in the Grade II Peter Pan Stakes on May 10 and a subsequent myectomy, performed to try to treat a breathing problem.
A final decision on whether Tomcitos connections will enter him in the Belmont Stakes is pending