Trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. still blames Kent Desormeaux for Big Brown's stunning last-place finish in the Belmont Stakes, but he wouldn't object to the jockey riding the horse in his next race
In gathering darkness last Saturday at Belmont Park, trainer Nick Zito watched as horses walked on a dirt path inside his backstretch barn, cooling themselves after racing in punishing 90° heat. A tall, brown colt walked slowly past on a groom's lead, dropping and then raising his head with each weary step. "Hey, Da' Tara," said Zito, calling the horse's name in a raspy growl. Then he turned to a small group of visitors. "Right there," said Zito, nodding toward the horse. "That's the winner."
One of the most tumultuous and controversial Triple Crown seasons in history is finished. Many questions remain about the five weeks just finished and about the years ahead for horse racing. Some of the questions, and some possible answers:
ELMONT, N.Y .-- We all fell for it, and we should have known better. After five weeks spent watching Big Brown dominate races in Kentucky and Maryland, it was just too easy to go along with trainer Rick Dutrow when he predicted victory for his colt this weekend in New York. That's right, we said, nodding in agreement, nobody else has even come close to the horse, so how can anybody hope to beat him now? So confident were we in his eventual victory that the big bay went off in Saturday's Belmont Stakes at odds of 1-4, the lowest since railbirds sent Spectacular Bid to the post as the 1-5 favorite in 1979. The outcome of the race was a foregone conclusion (never mind that the Bid had eventually lost his Belmont). This was going to be a cakewalk. All that was left was the winning.
ELMONT, N.Y. -- He leaned over a worn-down wooden railing outside Barn 11, supporting himself on his forearms, staring with deep despair into the Belmont Stakes' post-race holding stables. His horse, Big Brown, was inside, under inspection; the bay's completion of the Triple Crown here was supposed to be a mere formality, and yet he had pulled up and finished last, not conditioned well enough to make the mile and a half after missing three days of training with a quarter-crack in his front left hoof. And so Rick Dutrow Jr., the trainer who nearly an hour earlier had "guaranteed" victory, remained on the railing, immobile, his suit-jacket off, sweat soaking through all put the final few inches of his blue dress shirt above the belt. Dutrow had lost a lot of liquid. He had also lost the biggest race of his life, the chance to make history. He stayed silent for almost 30 minutes, ignoring the reporters peering at him from eight feet away through a chain-link fence.
Horse racing fans are likely to flock to Belmont Park in record numbers Saturday to see Big Brown take a shot at history.
"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings," said the famed English poet and writer Samuel Johnson, who likely would have found Big Brown trainer Rick Dutrow an interesting character. Since his horse romped in the Preakness, Dutrow has taken self-confidence to another level, talking big and trash-talking at every corner of the barn. Below, we offer the many guarantees of Dutrow, in his own words:
Rick Dutrow is more than happy to explain that Saturday's Belmont Stakes is not a rider's race. He is, in fact, more than happy to explain that any race in which Big Brown is a participant is not a rider's race. Or a trainer's race. Or an owner's race.
Triple Crown contender Big Brown has a slight crack to his left front hoof
Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Churchill Downs are separated by just 125 miles of southern Indiana countryside and the Ohio River. That's 50 laps around the Speedway, twice as many around Churchill. But the expansive motor racing cathedral, with its signature yard of bricks, and the stately horse racing track, defined by its dignified twin spires now dwarfed by grotesque modernization, are undeniably linked. Many of their most cherished traditions seem rooted in the same values. And each became the standard by which all who compete in their respective sports are judged.
Trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. still blames Kent Desormeaux for Big Brown's stunning last-place finish in the Belmont Stakes, but he wouldn't object to the jockey riding the horse in his next race
In gathering darkness last Saturday at Belmont Park, trainer Nick Zito watched as horses walked on a dirt path inside his backstretch barn, cooling themselves after racing in punishing 90° heat. A tall, brown colt walked slowly past on a groom's lead, dropping and then raising his head with each weary step. "Hey, Da' Tara," said Zito, calling the horse's name in a raspy growl. Then he turned to a small group of visitors. "Right there," said Zito, nodding toward the horse. "That's the winner."
One of the most tumultuous and controversial Triple Crown seasons in history is finished. Many questions remain about the five weeks just finished and about the years ahead for horse racing. Some of the questions, and some possible answers:
ELMONT, N.Y .-- We all fell for it, and we should have known better. After five weeks spent watching Big Brown dominate races in Kentucky and Maryland, it was just too easy to go along with trainer Rick Dutrow when he predicted victory for his colt this weekend in New York. That's right, we said, nodding in agreement, nobody else has even come close to the horse, so how can anybody hope to beat him now? So confident were we in his eventual victory that the big bay went off in Saturday's Belmont Stakes at odds of 1-4, the lowest since railbirds sent Spectacular Bid to the post as the 1-5 favorite in 1979. The outcome of the race was a foregone conclusion (never mind that the Bid had eventually lost his Belmont). This was going to be a cakewalk. All that was left was the winning.
ELMONT, N.Y. -- He leaned over a worn-down wooden railing outside Barn 11, supporting himself on his forearms, staring with deep despair into the Belmont Stakes' post-race holding stables. His horse, Big Brown, was inside, under inspection; the bay's completion of the Triple Crown here was supposed to be a mere formality, and yet he had pulled up and finished last, not conditioned well enough to make the mile and a half after missing three days of training with a quarter-crack in his front left hoof. And so Rick Dutrow Jr., the trainer who nearly an hour earlier had "guaranteed" victory, remained on the railing, immobile, his suit-jacket off, sweat soaking through all put the final few inches of his blue dress shirt above the belt. Dutrow had lost a lot of liquid. He had also lost the biggest race of his life, the chance to make history. He stayed silent for almost 30 minutes, ignoring the reporters peering at him from eight feet away through a chain-link fence.
Horse racing fans are likely to flock to Belmont Park in record numbers Saturday to see Big Brown take a shot at history.
"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings," said the famed English poet and writer Samuel Johnson, who likely would have found Big Brown trainer Rick Dutrow an interesting character. Since his horse romped in the Preakness, Dutrow has taken self-confidence to another level, talking big and trash-talking at every corner of the barn. Below, we offer the many guarantees of Dutrow, in his own words:
Rick Dutrow is more than happy to explain that Saturday's Belmont Stakes is not a rider's race. He is, in fact, more than happy to explain that any race in which Big Brown is a participant is not a rider's race. Or a trainer's race. Or an owner's race.
Triple Crown contender Big Brown has a slight crack to his left front hoof
Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Churchill Downs are separated by just 125 miles of southern Indiana countryside and the Ohio River. That's 50 laps around the Speedway, twice as many around Churchill. But the expansive motor racing cathedral, with its signature yard of bricks, and the stately horse racing track, defined by its dignified twin spires now dwarfed by grotesque modernization, are undeniably linked. Many of their most cherished traditions seem rooted in the same values. And each became the standard by which all who compete in their respective sports are judged.
There was something very different about this colt. He was pulled from his mother's womb in the broodmare barn at Monticule Farm in central Kentucky on the afternoon of April 10, 2005, deep bay in color but with a strange white dot at the top of his left front leg, near his rib cage. It was perhaps the size of a quarter, and none of the three people in the stall at the time of his birth had ever seen such a marking on a horse of his coloring. "What the devil is that?" said Monticule owner Gary Knapp. The horse's handlers, many of whom were Mexican, nicknamed him Punto Blanco, Spanish for "white dot."
BALTIMORE -- There was a sustained roar, equal parts exultation and relief, as Big Brown pulled away from his rivals in the Preakness at Pimlico on Saturday. Here was validation, not just for a colt who looks to be by far the best of his generation -- who now heads to the Belmont with a real chance to win the first Triple Crown in 30 years -- but also for a venerable sport that has spent the last two weeks defending itself against charges of animal cruelty. Big Brown's 5 ¼-length win did nothing to erase the horrible memory of the death of the filly Eight Bells in the Kentucky Derby, but by its very dominance, it did serve as a shining example of why the game is still played.
For thoroughbreds in this U.S. Caribbean territory, being fast enough to win, place or show is a matter of life and death
BALTIMORE -- Big Brown arrived Wednesday evening at Pimlico Race Track for Saturday's Preakness. He was preceded onto the grounds of the old track by two of his business partners: In front of his horse trailer a brown UPS delivery truck of the variety that is probably driving up your street right now, and behind it a UPS cab for pulling an 18-wheeled truck. I didn't see the guy with the squeaky grease pencil in the UPS whiteboard commercials, but I'm sure he'll be here soon.
They will run another major horse race on Saturday: The 133rd Preakness in Baltimore. This will come 14 days after Eight Belles' awful breakdown more than quarter mile past the finish line of the Kentucky Derby. There have been hundreds of races run since the Derby, at tracks across the nation, but in the vast majority of cases, only a few people were watching. Millions will be watching Saturday.
For journalists, Kentucky Derby chaos begins in earnest when the race ends. We watch the race from some less-than-ideal location (we are given sensational viewing spots on the balcony at the front of the press box, but it is nearly impossible to report quickly after the race from that perch, because of the crush of humanity between the sixth-floor balcony and racetrack-level winner's circle). Then we scramble to find quick and genuine reaction, before time dulls emotions.
Here was a patch of racetrack earth where destinies collided last Saturday in the late-afternoon sunshine. Thoroughbred trainer Rick Dutrow ran awkwardly through sandy soil near the Churchill Downs finish line en route to an infield winner's circle celebration for Big Brown, the brilliant 3-year-old colt that Dutrow saddled for an epic victory in the 134th Kentucky Derby. Walter Blum, one of Dutrow's exercise riders and a longtime friend, threw an arm across Dutrow's meaty shoulders and yelled in his left ear, "You did it, man! You won the Kentucky Derby! The horse is a freak! He's a freak!" Dutrow met Blum's eyes and cackled wildly, a man locked in the sweetest of dreams.
Once again, tragedy mars the Triple Crown. But Big Brown could lift the cloud
I was born and raised in Kentucky, a background that usually doesn't offer much in the way of conversation fodder.
THE RACE -- The 134th Kentucky Derby, the most storied and important horse race in the world. It's also, by consensus, the most difficult to win.
Houston Texans patriarch Bob McNair is everything an owner of a professional sports team should be: involved without being meddlesome, supportive without being overbearing. He is self-made, smart and enlightened. The next time he is overcome by ego will be the first.
The story of the 134th Kentucky Derby begins and ends with Big Brown. Not the handicapping story, the story story.
To understand how much synthetic surfaces have changed thoroughbred racing -- and inverted the esoteric calculus of handicapping -- one need look no further than Colonel John. In years past the big bay colt from California would probably have been a clear favorite to win the Kentucky Derby.
Did you ever talk about Nutsy Fagan around your neighborhood? When somebody acted, well, nutsy, we said, "He's as nutsy as Nutsy Fagan!" There's some question who exactly this Nutsy Fagan was. He might have been a guy in 19th-century New York, who liked to join funeral processions under the impression they were parades. And, of course, we weren't so considerate then. A guy was fat -- we called him "fats;" a guy was nutsy -- hey, we called him "nutsy."
Early Friday morning I drove through Gate 5 on the Churchill Downs backstretch. I motored along, without stopping once, through a maze of horse barns and small auxiliary buildings until I pulled into a parking spot alongside the massive racetrack, across the infield from the twin spires. One car was parked next to mine. Trainer Nick Zito, whom I had arranged to meet at the track, stood nearby, talking with an acquaintance. Not another person was in sight. Had I brought my crossbow, I could have fired arrows in four directions and not harmed a soul.
While baseball may have steroids and football may have illicit videotaping, many minor sports outside the mainstream have been shaken by major scandals of their own. Here are eight of our favorites that don't involve performance-enhancing drugs or Tonya Harding.
Three adult siblings will sit in a spectator box this Saturday at Churchill Downs to watch the Kentucky Derby. They will dress for the occasion, bet foolishly on slow horses and surely sip a mint julep or two. Come late afternoon, when the Downs' fabled twin spires cast shadows across the sandy loam of the track, they will cheer in full throat for Barbaro, a tall, long-bodied 3-year-old colt to whom they are linked by a tether that reaches back 17 years.
The first flowers arrived on the morning after the Preakness, a breezy and sunlit springtime Sunday that turned the rolling hills a brilliant shade of green in Pennsylvania horse country south of Philadelphia. Signs were hung from the wooden fence rails outside the New Bolton Center, where Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was being treated for what surgeons would soon call "catastrophic'' injuries to his right hind leg. A family arrived with a bunch of carrots and asked that they be given to the horse.
In the 24 years since the start of horse racing's Breeders Cup, it has been relentlessly called "The Super Bowl of Racing,'' which makes it just another event that marketers or media have tried to elevate by lazy comparison to the most overblown spectacle in sports.
Q. What do Billy Graham and the Mets have in common?
Kyle Busch stood listless beside his No. 5 Chevrolet on Sunday at Kansas, watching the crew put the parts and pieces of his mangled race car back together. It was a Midwestern storm the likes of which the youngster never expected, and now -- fresh off a wreck that had left his championship hopes on life support -- you sensed that the car wasn't the only thing left broken in this sullen section of the garage. There was an old wound revived, a blow to the heart which had already taken months to heal.
Editor's note: We asked SI.com writers to share their memories from the best game they've ever seen. Here are their stories:
They all wondered: How good can she be? On cold spring mornings in Kentucky, retired Hall of Fame jockey Angel Cordero exercised a colt alongside the filly Rags to Riches and watched her effortless athleticism, a sweet running action possessed by only the rarest of racehorses. "Everything looks so easy for her," Cordero recalls thinking. "She goes fast, she goes slow, she's so handy. She can do something special." On a rainy afternoon one day before the running of the May 5 Kentucky Derby, rival trainer Nick Zito stood alone in the Churchill Downs paddock, gazing up at a giant television screen as Rags to Riches crushed 13 foes to win the Kentucky Oaks, a prestigious race for 3-year-old fillies. "That's some nice filly," said Zito to a writer.
Ten lingering thoughts, now that two legs of the Triple Crown are in the books:
A lesson confirmed: Triple Crown dreams are best expressed with caution. Street Sense came to last Saturday's Preakness after a dominant Kentucky Derby victory so resonant that his guileless Cajun jockey, Calvin Borel, was invited to a state dinner at the White House. His trainer, Texan Carl Nafzger, was praised effusively for his skillful conditioning. The racing game again readied itself for history. "If he can get by this one, he looks like he can run all day in the Belmont," said Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, promisingly."
No joke. I get a call this afternoon from a buddy of mine, livid about NBC's decision to dump overtime of the elimination game between Buffalo and Ottawa onto Versus.
The Preakness doesn't truly exist in the present, except for the slightly less than two minutes it takes to run the race on Saturday afternoon. It is the quintessential look-back, look-ahead sporting event.
Let's suppose you approach Saturday's Preakness Stakes, the second jewel of horse racing's Triple Crown, from a wagering perspective. (I am assuming that many people do, because that's the question I get most from family, friends and colleagues when I'm on the horse racing beat: Who is going to win? The short answer is: I have no idea. I haven't made a bet since the 1987 Travers, when I lost a much-too-large wager on a short horse named Polish Navy).
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Calvin Borel looked tired Tuesday morning. It might have been because he got up while it was still dark out, drove his gunmetal gray Chevy truck from his home in the Louisville Highlands to Churchill Downs and worked three horses before most people sip their first skim latte of the day.
Can Street Sense win the Preakness? Absolutely.
On a warm winter morning at a South Florida thoroughbred training center, Carl Nafzger talked with a visitor while a young colt watched from his stall not 10 feet away. The nation's 2-year-old champion in 2006, Street Sense had not run a race in the new year, and here it was the last day of February. The Kentucky Derby loomed in the distance. "He's a phenomenal horse," said Nafzger, a 65-year-old Texan with a weed-whacker drawl and one Derby victory already on his résumé. "But wherever we're going, it's up to him to take us there. We'll just go along."
In the most predictable of scenarios, the Kentucky Derby is a vast riddle. Young athletes (horses) are being asked to run further than they have run in their brief, competitive lives and, in truth, further than most of them will ever be asked to run again. Likewise, they are facing 19 opponents for the first and almost surely the only time. They are running in front of more than 150,000 obstreperous spectators for the first and -- repeat after me -- only time.
Trainer Carl Nafzger is back at Churchill Downs with what appears to be a very good chance to win the Kentucky Derby. Again. (He has a good chance, at least, to the extent that any trainer has a ''good'' chance to win the most challenging race in the world). Street Sense, who won last November's Breeders Cup Juvenile race for Nafzger and longtime client James Tafel, is training spectacularly for the Derby and will probably be made the favorite on Saturday afternoon. (Even though he was not expected to be installed as the morning line favorite by Churchill Downs oddsmaker Mike Battaglia.)
The newest gimmick bonus conceived for the Kentucky Derby by its title sponsor is an ill-conceived miss that stands a better chance of damaging the sport of racing than enhancing it, and racing's margin for error is much too small.
Victory in the Kentucky Derby comes at a cost. That cost can be measured partly in the simplest possible economic terms (dollars and cents), but also by far more complex criteria for which there is no equation. As soon as you find a way to assign empirical values to dreams (those both fulfilled and lost), labor (endless hours worked away from family) and the fog of legacy, let me know. We'll crunch the digits.
Larry Jones is the big guy on the horse. Jones is a thoroughbred horse trainer who is good enough that he saddles a contender for this year's Kentucky Derby, so it's not exactly news that he knows how to sit in a saddle, but this is not your average backstretch situation.
He could see this call coming. Not long after the end of last year's Kentucky Derby, trainer Todd Pletcher's cellphone buzzed to life. His 3-year-old colt, Bluegrass Cat, had just run second to Barbaro with a solid performance that nonetheless kept Pletcher winless in the most significant horse race on the planet. On the other end was David Lerner, a friend and fraternity brother from Pi Kappa Alpha two decades ago at Arizona.
Michael Matz seems a little older this year. That description does not denigrate Matz. At 56, he still appears at least a decade younger than his birth certificate claims. His hips and shoulders are impossibly slim, as if time has spared his equestrian's body; his eyes are still a piercing blue. Maybe it's just the subject matter that has aged him.
Four Saturdays remain until Kentucky Derby 133. Five major prep races are scheduled for the next two weekends, beginning with the Wood Memorial, Santa Anita Derby and Illinois Derby on Saturday. Some things we know. Some things we don't know. A list of each.
There was the crowning moment for Edgar Prado: recognition of his high standing in a fiercely competitive and dangerous trade. On the night of Jan. 22, at an opulent Beverly Hills hotel, Prado was awarded a 2006 Eclipse Award as the outstanding jockey in thoroughbred horse racing. He was draped in a black tuxedo, and at 5'3" tall, he towered over the ancient sport.
Most of America catches up with the Kentucky Derby about 15 minutes before the starting gate slams open on the first Saturday in May. (Make no mistake, they do catch up; Derby TV ratings kill). The race unfolds in two minutes, followed by a tedious TV presentation on the Churchill Downs infield in which a procession of lawmakers, corporate executives and anchormen step on each other's pronouncements. But it looks nice, out there on the ersatz front porch.
Todd Pletcher does not sweat. His hair is prematurely gray and preternaturally perfect in heat, rain and wind. His jackets are wrinkle free, his shoes polished and his speech devoid of telltale, unprofessional pauses. He does not crack.
How swiftly the Triple Crown talk changed, from uncertainty to the pursuit of greatness in two minutes. Before the start of the 132nd Kentucky Derby last Saturday, the race appeared wide open. At least a half dozen good horses could not be separated by ordinary handicapping tools. Any one of seven could win, said two-time Derby-winning trainer Nick Zito. Any one of 10, said three-time winner Bob Baffert. Parity reigned. There was no apparent superstar.
Watching the USA soccer team play today? Go, Yanks, Go! Anyone out there rooting for Paraguay? Just wondering. Let's hope stocks stabilize this week, right?
The Kentucky Derby may be a horse race (and what a race - it's the oldest continuously running sporting event in the U.S.), but let's be honest. Ask most people what they associate with the Derby and they'll likely say "mint juleps and hats."
The best known name in horse racing -- the Kentucky Derby -- is changing that name to include a corporate sponsor.
As you watch the Kentucky Derby this Saturday, consider this ... most of the guys hanging by their fingers and toes to those charging 40-mph thoroughbreds are going to walk away with only $50 for their risk.
The Kentucky Derby will showcase a sponsor for the first time in its 131 years of horse racing, as the chain that owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut has inked a deal with the race.
Before the horses take off running at this month's Belmont Stakes, EchoStar Communications hopes its new onscreen betting system will have viewers champing at the bit. For the first time, Dish Netw...
CANADIAN BILLIONAIRE FRANK Stronach made his fortune by building Magna International into one of the world's top suppliers to the automobile industry. His passion, though, has long been thoroughbre...
Horse racing fans have been eagerly awaiting a Triple Crown winner for decades, believing it would revive general interest in the sport.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - How do you make a small fortune owning thoroughbreds? Start with a large fortune.
Never has creeping commercialism in sports been such a reason to cheer as it was Thursday, when jockeys got the right to wear ads in the Kentucky Derby.
Jockeys in Saturday's running of the Kentucky Derby will be able to wear advertisements on their silks, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
How do you make a small fortune owning thoroughbreds? Start with a large fortune.
At times the sport of kings is still just that. On the first Saturday in May, expensively clad women in big hats and men in sharp suits flock to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby, which just c...
If you need further proof that Congress works in weird ways, here it is. Lawmakers are now considering a bill called the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act of 1999. Common sense says that such legis...
Talk about a long shot: The Daily Racing Form, the horseplayer's bible, has for a decade been a declining newspaper in a declining industry. Battered by competition, it has seen its circulation and...
They say that Hong Kong is run by the Jockey Club, the Hongkong Bank, and the governor--in that order. Now the governor is on his way out, and the colonial bastion of "The Bank" is ceding influence...
Your servant has already taken sides in a tax case currently agitating the beau monde, or at least that sliver of it on display in the owners' dining room at Aqueduct. The case pits troubled tycoon...
From the galloping growth of the early 1970s, thoroughbred racing has slowed , to a pace that invites pigeons to roost. To be sure, some 50 million people played $7.6 billion on the ponies in 1985....
At precisely 1:10 on a recent Monday afternoon, your correspondent accessed an elevator at Belmont Park, pushed the ''B'' button, and soon enough found himself hiking through an eerily lit basement...
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