Thirty-eight to one longshot Da’ Tara, trained by Nick Zito and owned by Robert LaPenta, jumped to the front of the Belmont Stakes, as expected. Less predictably, he stayed there, taking the race gate to wire, winning by 5 1/4 lengths, and clocking a final time of 2:29.65. Big Brown, making a bid to become the 12th Triple Crown-winner in American horse racing, finished dead last.

It was Da’ Tara’s second win in eight starts, and as the longest shot on the board he paid $79 for a $2 win ticket. He increased his lifetime earnings almost tenfold. It was Nick Zito’s second Belmont Stakes win, and his second time upsetting the Triple Crown hopes of a seemingly invincible horse.

The formerly invincible Big Brown was bottled up on the inside, chomped at the bit, and tossed his head in the first few hundred yards. It was clear that things were not going well. His attempt for the Triple Crown would not be realized. This was not the Big Brown that cruised to victory in his other starts. The horse was not there.

“He was keen to go on early,” said his jockey Kent Desormeaux after the race. “He broke so hard.”

Instead of a coronation — which most handicappers and turf hacks thought probable (few even stretched the boundaries of smart turf writing and put forth the idea that it was a certainty, a lock, a foregone conclusion) — we were in the opening moments of yet another fizzled run for a spot in the history books.

On the backstretch, Big Brown looked like he might get his stride. There’s a lot of time in the Belmont, after all, perhaps he’d recover. Desormeaux seemed calm, and said after the race that he “got him out early and he just cantered down the backside.”

But then: “A couple of times he thought it was time to go and jumped into the bridle. But I had no horse. He’s the best horse I’ve ever been on so I took care of him,” said Desormeaux. “It was hot as hell out there. There were no popped tires. He was just out of gas.”

The idea will be widely put forward that we should change the schedule, these races are too close together. If the Triple Crown were an easy thing, there’d be more than 11 horses with the honor. You shouldn’t make school easier because students are doing poorly.

Horse racing is about upsets. That’s the name of the game. Everybody loses. Longshot wins are equally storied, that’s why Governor Paterson told the story of his great grandfather, who shod Upset and sent him out to race against the indomitable Man o’ War.

Upset won.

Interestingly, it leaves Big Brown with something to prove. Maybe the Mass Cap at Suffolk Downs, against Curlin, for an increased purse of $3 million would be just the place to prove it.