Big Brown Now Races Against His Own Reputation

In Saturday’s run for a million dollars in Baltimore, the 133rd running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, I’m going to go out on a very stout limb and suggest that I am not the only racing writer in America who feels that Big Brown is going to win. I’m also not the only guy in town who thinks that Big Brown has a chance to take the Triple Crown. In fact, I’ve read that some sports books are giving odds as low as even money that he’ll do just that. But a chance and even money are two different things. There’s a race to be run. While it doesn’t look like there will be much competition for BB on the track tomorrow, he still has something to prove. Plenty of horses can turn in one good race. What separates good horses from horses deserving a spot in history is whether they can keep doing it.Big Brown started just once as a 2-year-old, running away with a September race over the grass at Saratoga. His race was splendid, far beyond what one would expect from a 2-year-old running on the turf. He didn’t return to the track until March, when he started his 3-year-old season — with a new trainer — by crushing a small, overmatched field at Gulfstream Park. It was not a big-money stakes race, it was not even run on a Saturday. With just those two starts, his trainer, Rick Dutrow, showed what he thought he was holding by entering the colt in the Florida Derby, the marquee event of Gulfstream’s season, and an important prep race for the Kentucky Derby. He took that race in thrilling fashion.Going into the Derby there were doubts: He’d run so few races, and he’d dominated smaller fields of lesser horses. He had taken such control of the races he’d run that it was as if he’d barely ever seen another horse on the track. He has to run with special shoes, because he has problems with his hooves. To make matters worse for him, he was starting from slot no. 20 in the gate.Those doubts fell to the floor with the torn tickets of my losing bets as the results of the Derby became official. Big Brown had answered his detractors with a resounding victory. Indeed, the gut feeling of watching him win the Derby was profound. Viscerally, Big Brown’s run was all a fan could ask for.But why? The time hadn’t been especially fast, 2:01 4/5 is nothing to be ashamed of, but isn’t stellar. His Beyer Speed Figure, the tremendous handicapping tool invented by Andrew Beyer, was 109. A great number, but again, nothing out of this world. Then I heard a rumor about his Ragozin number, went to their Web site (TheSheets.com), and picked it up.The Ragozin Sheets seem more complicated than they are. I’m not at all ashamed to admit that I am somewhat less than facile with them, but they, like any other tool, simply rate the performance of a horse in a race. The number crunchers at the head office promise to evaluate the run based upon information that is not taken into account elsewhere. They boil a mess of factors — speed, weight, allowance for unusual track condition, racing wide or saving ground,headwinds or tailwinds, peculiarities of track construction such as downhill areas, etc. — down to a number which generally falls somewhere between zero and 40. A championship rating is a zero.Gayego’s run earned him a number of approximately 14 3/4. Big Brown earned a negative 3/4. That’s as good as it gets. It’s the best number they’ve ever awarded in the Derby. It’s better than Secretariat’s. But lets not get ahead of our selves. The head handicapper at the Ragozin Sheets, Len Friedman, put it into perspective. “The Derby was a little faster than it looked, they were running into the wind on the stretch, and they run the stretch twice. Big Brown was on the outside the whole race. That’s why his number is as low as it is.”He ran a good Derby, but better than Secretariat? Friedman explained that numbers in general are better now than they were 30 years ago, because the horses are faster. To compare a horse of today, with his specialized feed programs and Lasix, to a horse of Secretariat’s era, you’ve got to add three or four points.And, of course, greatness isn’t measured by a performance in a single race. “The Secretariat myth is not a myth. Secretariat didn’t just run a good Derby; he didn’t just turn in a couple of good performances. He was a super horse. Big Brown is not a super horse.” Drawing a distinction between greatness and historical greatness, Friedman said, “He’s not up there with Secretariat or Spectacular Bid. But he is on par with the best 3-year-olds.”Saturday, Big Brown is a horse on the threshold. He’s in the gate with a crew of horses who are, at best, average. Will he win the Preakness?“He’s 12 lengths better than any of them,” Friedman said.Will he do it in such a way as to prove himself? That’s the real question. Big Brown is not just running against a field of horses, he’s running against his own reputation.Here’s the tangle: Dutrow’s plan should be — and I’m sure it is — to win the Preakness by nothing more than the slimmest margin. There’s no reason to waste energy just to take a horse like Yankee Bravo to school. The barn has its collective fingers crossed that he’ll bounce off the Derby performance and run 10 lengths slower than he ran in Kentucky.Somehow, the horse, Kent Desormeax, and Dutrow have to figure out a way to win in such a way as to prove that Big Brown deserves to be praised and save enough of his energy to come back again in three weeks, where his stiffest competition, a horse named Casino Drive, is waiting in the wings.Although the Preakness is a fascinating, storied race, it can seem, at times, like the neglected middle child of the Triple Crown family. The Derby captivates America in a way that no other horse race can. At Belmont, we often have the hype of a potential Triple Crown, and we have the unique rigors of 1 1/2 mile distance. This year, the Preakness has the most riveting question of the season. History will show that Big Brown’s reputation hinged on the race he ran Saturday, May 17.mwatman@nysun.com

Big Brown Now Races Against His Own Reputation

Big Brown Now Races Against His Own Reputation

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