This Belmont turned out to be possibly the most disappointing horse race I have ever seen, maybe because expectations were so high, maybe also because in a way it
fulfilled the eternal truth about the races, that there are just too many quirky and unpredictable factors that can come into play, even with an apparent superhorse-in-the-making like Big Brown. Here we have this next potential Secretariat hoping to break a three decade jinx, here we have the next overconfident trainer with a somewhat checkered past,just asking to be shot down, and it all gets resolved in the worst way possible: the superhorse finishing LAST, and the trainer, drenched in sweat, his back to everybody, unable to speak.
I knew something was up with this horse very early on:
a kind of physical affect I’ve never seen before from him: standard issue RANKNESS. He had the rail but the “cheap speed” Da’Tara goes and takes it from him and it’s as though Big Brown was immediately boxed in and necessarily restrained by Desormeaux. Then he gets taken around, wide, and still looks rank and almost like he’s start to “wheel”,
while the speed, as so often happens in the Belmont, dominates the pace and confounds everyone, and wins wire to wire , pretty much going away. With Casino Drive out of the race, it might have been a different pace scenario, a different result. Nothing broke well for BB today, not the heat, not the quarter crack, not the trip, but everything broke well for a lesser horse who got a dream trip and a dream ride and obviously , once he got the lead, ran the race of his life.
Well, I’m sorry you’re disappointed. I know the feeling.
I don’t know Dutrow, but I’d be willing to bet that he hated the idea of running this horse 3 times in five weeks, especially with the quarter.
Now, we’ll see if he makes the Travers. Could happen. Has something to prove.