DownYonder - agree all your points.
Beezer - re: possibility of BB spooking at man on the track. On another thread here - where Reuters photos posted - I mentioned a photo showing man on the track inside the rail - seemingly in BB’s lane. Photo shows BB veering right - in front of Guadalcanal.
Someone said that person was the starter???!!! So I thought I was the only idgit
concerned about the man on the track. Did you read about this elsewhere?
I’m sorry that the NYT editorial rooted against Big Brown. Let’s root against his connections, not against the horse. (Maybe that is what the writer meant, probably.)
The horse did everything right, including trying to run fast in confusing and contradictory conditions. He’s young, he’s inexperienced, he’s untempered. Too bad he didn’t suffer this situation in a previous race, instead of on world-wide TV, so that he could have learned and gained experience.
I thought Kent’s ride was a head-scratcher, but again, who knows what BB was handing him to work with. And I can’t criticize him, as no jockey goes into a race like that trying to do it badly. He did the right thing in terms of the horse’s legacy. With being pulled up, a mystery will always surround that day. If the horse came in trailing the field… well, that wouldn’t exactly have the mares flocking to Three Chimneys.
The one way to settle this is to run that horse again and see what he’s made of. He has to keep running to prove that Belmont was just a bad day.
[QUOTE=caffeinated;3279383]
this one?
http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/Dudski/2008/06/07/Big_BrownThe_Interview[/QUOTE]
:lol:
Thanks for the link, that was hilarious!
Great article! My guess KD won’t be riding Brown again!
Agreed, Hessy
Totally agree - I also think it was the first time BB was in really tight company, got bumped around and had dirt kicked up in his face . . . something a more seasoned horse might have some tolerance for . . . I’m not a KD/RD fan either, but am really glad that BB came out of the race OK.
It will be interesting to see who rides him next . . . too bad Gary Stevens is done . . .
As an uneducated racing person…
I saw the race exactly as Kent explains it. I also think that the days off of training due to the quarter crack did no good. Schedules for a horse to peak on the exact day are essential in any discipline.
Gary Stevens was doing color on TV. Never said anything close to want he said on radio. Hmmmm, perhaps he’s in Dutrow’s court?
Gary is Dutrow’s court, yes. BUT he is employed by IEAH.
Yep…he freely discloses that on the telecasts. IEAH is the equine hedge fund that owns and operates Big Brown and employs RD.
Not so casual a bystander merely reporting on things here.
It’s been common knowledge for some time. Article on it in the form when Gary took the job. He’s the “liason” for bloodstock agents to present horses to if I recall correctly.
[QUOTE=FAW;3279769]
Gary Stevens was doing color on TV. Never said anything close to want he said on radio. Hmmmm, perhaps he’s in Dutrow’s court?[/QUOTE]
Gary wasn’t on ABC’s coverage. He does racing color for NBC; Jerry Bailey did the duty on Belmont day for ABC. So he wasn’t in a position to say anything on TV during the Belmont coverage. 
[QUOTE=grayarabs;3279490] Beezer - re: possibility of BB spooking at man on the track. On another thread here - where Reuters photos posted - I mentioned a photo showing man on the track inside the rail - seemingly in BB’s lane. Photo shows BB veering right - in front of Guadalcanal.
Someone said that person was the starter???!!! So I thought I was the only idgit
concerned about the man on the track. Did you read about this elsewhere?[/QUOTE]
Yes, the “misplaced man” has been mentioned several times, by the Bloodhorse and in some other articles. He’s pretty obvious in the photos, as is BB’s spooking at him.
The “misplaced man” would be the starter. Not a new position for the official starter to stand at. He’d have seen that before the Belmont
[QUOTE=Chiniko;3279893]
The “misplaced man” would be the starter. Not a new position for the official starter to stand at. He’d have seen that before the Belmont[/QUOTE]
I’m calling him that for lack of a better phrase; I know he’s the starter. It’s just very, very clear from the photos that BB spooked at him, and he does appear to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t know if it was because of his very contrasting suit – it certainly caught MY eye – or because I was concentrating so hard on the one hole 
that he is so very, very obviously “there.” Certainly he caught the horse by surprise, too.
And, as I said, there have been several others who commented on how clearly the horse spooked at him and dropped into the path of Guadalcanal. So it’s not simply my overactive imagination. :lol:
I don’t have the PP’s in front of me, had BB ever started from the 1 hole previously??
God bless racereplays. Big Brown broke his maiden from the 1 hole.
Dutrow is a known dirt bag, so who (besides the non-horsey public) is going to take anything he says seriously?
Karma will address Dutrow.
Not saying this necessarily applies to BB, just throwing the idea into the mix, FWIW. I had one horse - looked a good bit like him, actually, may her Divaness rest in peace - who was normally not at all spooky, could be many things but not spooky. However, the trainer and I finally worked out that the times that she became suddenly more reactive/spooky, often at a familiar thing, were the times that something was bugging her a bit physically, NQR. Not blatant lameness yet, but something nagging at her a little, and then a minor problem would turn up in the next few days after she got spooky. Her first reaction to mild discomfort was to be a bit of a spook. I wondered when the starter issue came up if BB, not quite feeling 100%, had that contribute to a spook then, like she would have.
Or maybe BB just didn’t like that starter.
I have not read through this entire thread so I do not know if some one has raised this issue.I am curious to know if Dutrow would be so quick to bash Kent had we had another Eight Belles or Barbaro on our hands. I am not a racehorse tainer nor do I plan to be one.I just think that if Kent honestly thought there was an issue[NQR] then pulling up BB should be a non issue.
