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Derby favorite Big Brown eyes history
by Ed Fountaine, New York Post
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Two minutes and a mile-and-a-quarter later, one of them — the fastest, bravest, and, yes, luckiest of the 20 — will be honored in the charmed circle, draped with a blanket of roses after winning the greatest horse race in the world.
A severe thunderstorm hit Louisville Friday afternoon, but clearing skies are forecast for the race. The sun should shine bright on a fast track, with a high of 73 degrees.
A lot of money is at stake in today's Run for the Roses — a purse of $2,211,800, with $1,451,800 going to the winner. Millions more await the Derby champion when it goes to stud.
But the Derby offers more than lucre. It's the chance of a lifetime for one colt — or, in this year's field, the filly Eight Belles — to join the pantheon that began with Aristides in 1875 and echoes with names like Citation and Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed.
One Derby runner seems poised on the brink of immortality: 7-2 favorite Big Brown, the undefeated Florida Derby winner, owned by the IEAH Stable formed by Long Island investment bankers Mike Iavarone and Rich Schiavo. They bought a 75 percent share in the colt from Brooklyn's Paul Pompa for a reported $3 million after Big Brown won his first start, on turf at Saratoga last September, by 11 1/4 lengths.
Triple Crown
This year, the big brown son of Boundary won a mile allowance race at Gulfstream Park in March by 12 3/4, followed by a five-length, gate-to-wire romp in the March 29 Florida Derby at a mile-and-an-eighth.
"I don't want to say he's special yet," his trainer, Aqueduct-based Rick Dutrow Jr., said yesterday. "But he's headed in that direction."
All week, Dutrow has been saying he doesn't see a horse in the field that can beat his Brown. But Dutrow's confidence flies in the face of numerous obstacles that lie in the colt's path. It's almost as if an Old Testament God has hurled challenge after challenge at Big Brown, demanding he overcome them all to prove his worth.
Big Brown is trying to become the third horse since 1947 to win with just two prep races as a 3-year-old. Why is he so lightly raced? Last fall, Big Brown came down with a quarter-crack in his hoof (think of a split toenail, only much more troublesome). Then he suffered a quarter-crack in his other hoof that became infected and sidelined him for 45 days over the winter.
There's an old saying: "No foot, no horse." Dutrow said the hoof problems are behind Big Brown, who wears expensive, padded, glue-on shoes to protect his feet. But the pounding of a race can cause quarter-cracks to reoccur. To protect Big Brown from the friction that can burn his heels, he will wear front bandages today for the first time in a race, always a red flag.
"I don't like doing it because it will bring up a lot of questions," Dutrow said. "But it's not anything to worry about."
Perhaps the biggest hurdle confronting Big Brown arose Wednesday, when he landed in the far outside post. Only one Derby winner, Clyde Van Dusen in 1929, came from the 20 hole. Since then, only Gato del Sol, post 18, won from farther out than 16.
"For me, (the post) works out perfect because I can catbird someone into the first turn," said jockey Kent Desormeaux, a two-time Derby winner who tabs Big Brown the best he's ever ridden.
In 1985, Spend a Buck torched the Derby, quickly opening a daylight lead, and he never looked back. Perhaps Big Brown is sitting on a similar tour-de-force. If so, if he can jump over the moon this afternoon, he is worthy of the word "great."
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