Mighty Steed Big Brown Set for the Belmont

Many will say it can’t be done, that horses arrive in New York at the threshold of greatness and find the race, which is run at a mile and a half, 5/16 of a mile longer than the Preakness, too long. But Big Brown looked like he could have run a lap around the track before the other horses started and still won. He looked like he was ready to run the Preakness again right after it was done. He will make the distance.Big Brown rolled into Baltimore undefeated and rolled through the Preakness like it was nothing, like he was some sort of ideal version of the thoroughbred, some impossible apex of the breed. Now he’s coming to New York. He’s going to the Belmont Stakes in three weeks to try to break the 30-year drought and win the Triple Crown.Some will point to the luck of the thing. So many things can happen to a horse; there are so many accidents, tiny illnesses, hooves, and fevers, and all sorts of strange reasons they go off their feed. It only took a safety pin lodged in Spectacular Bid’s hoof to deny him the victory he surely deserved.In reality, the numbers aren’t bad at all. Thirty-one horses have been in a position to win the Triple Crown, and of those 31, two did not go to the Belmont Stakes. Eleven found themselves victorious, their names etched in racing history. That’s 35%. That’s not impossible; in fact, that’s a good batting average.Still, it’s not easy. It’s a grueling race at the end of a grueling campaign. Going into the Kentucky Derby, Big Brown had raced three times. The Belmont Stakes will, during the course of five weeks, double the lines on his past performance sheet.We’ll spend the next three weeks pondering his potential, analyzing the contenders, and running imaginary Belmont Stakes, but my first instinct is that the horse is the real thing. That he’s our boy. This is the one.You can see it in the way he ran the Preakness.In the first steps of the Preakness, Kent Desormeaux, up in the irons on Big Brown, wanted position and didn’t want to get trapped in traffic. He let the reins out a little, and Big Brown shot forward like he wanted to fly away. If Desormeaux had lit the fuse, they’d have rocketed around the track. But Desormeaux didn’t need to spend Big Brown’s energy humiliating this bunch. He wrestled the horse, slowed him down. You could see Big Brown’s head turn sideways on the stretch before the clubhouse turn: That was Kent Desormeaux mashing on the brakes.Throughout the race, you could see he was holding the horse back, he wouldn’t let him go, wouldn’t let Big Brown unleash whatever it is that’s inside.That’s how they came to the quarter pole, and, with two furlongs left, Desormeaux gave Big Brown his head and Big Brown shot to the front in a flash. When Desormeaux turned Big Brown on, there was no question.“Big Brown’s in town,” cried Tom Durkin, and indeed he was.A furlong is 660 feet, an eighth of a mile; a good average stride is about 20 feet. So it takes an average racehorse 33 strides to run a furlong. Let’s give Big Brown the benefit of the doubt and suggest that he’s slightly above average. Secretariat covered 24 feet with each stride; let’s give Big Brown 22.A good racehorse takes about 2 1/2 strides a second, about 150 strides a minute. Two minutes to run the Kentucky Derby in 300 strides. The Preakness is 270 strides long.Not for Big Brown. For Big Brown, who ran one furlong, the Preakness was 30 strides long.He ran from the quarter pole to the eighth pole, 660 feet in 30 strides, and then came the already iconic image of Kent Desormeaux looking back to see anyone is coming to get him. No one was. So the jockey hit the brakes again and cantered across the finish line.On the stretch, Durkin called, “Big Brown barrels through Baltimore with plenty left on this undefeated run for the Triple Crown.”Certainly he looked like he had plenty left. Those two looked as if they were out for a ride across a meadow.There is one horse waiting in the wings, one 3-year-old left to beat: the very talented Japanese import named Casino Drive. He won the Peter Pan at Belmont and he is here for the express purpose, it seems, of challenging Big Brown at the Belmont Stakes.When Casino Drive won the Peter Pan, he did it impressively, looking like a top-shelf 3-year-old, looking like the real thing.But if you watch the Preakness and Peter Pan replays back to back, you see two very different things. Wonderfully, for purposes of comparison, Desormeaux was up in the irons on Casino Drive when he won the Peter Pan. When Desormeaux, atop Casino Drive, makes his move to pull away and open up serious daylight on the stretch, he is down on the horse’s withers, face buried in the mane, whip working, pushing him past the others. Unlike what he did Saturday on Big Brown, Desormeaux kept him going, riding him hard until the end.We’re not going to get many chances to see Big Brown run. He’s already been contracted to stand as a stud at Three Chimneys in a deal reported to be worth $50 million dollars. Belmont might be his last race. I hope that when the gates clang open, and Big Brown tries to run away with it, that Desormeaux lets him go. Just light the fuse, and let’s see what he’s got. It’ll take him 360 strides to finish the Belmont. What would it look like if he actually ran every one of them?mwatman@nysun.com

Mighty Steed Big Brown Set for the Belmont

Mighty Steed Big Brown Set for the Belmont

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