[OLD HEAD]

No crown for Brown as Da'Tara wins the Belmont
Belmont Is Humbling
June 8, 2008
Rick Bozich

ELMONT, N.Y. -- The horses surged into the final turn of the Belmont Stakes yesterday, the sweet spot in the race where Big Brown ran away from the world in the Kentucky Derby and then briskly embarrassed the Preakness field, too. It was time, time for Big Brown to make his big move, thundering directly into history.

"He's in a perfect spot," trainer Bob Baffert said, from his perch at the rail by the Belmont finish line. "He's ready to move."

But this time when jockey Kent Desormeaux took the colt wide into the turn, he made a different move.

He quit. Gave up. Practically stopped.

"When they turned for home, I knew something wasn't right," trainer Rick Dutrow said.

No, something was wrong. Inexplicably wrong. Big Brown was a big bust.

He finished last in the Belmont Stakes, which was won by Da' Tara. That is a horse trained by Nick Zito as well as a horse Big Brown dusted by 23 1/2 lengths in the Florida Derby.

In the past three decades, 10 horses have come to the Belmont off victories in the Derby and Preakness, primed to give horse racing its 12th Triple Crown winner. None was beaten as decisively as Big Brown, a 3-10 favorite, was dusted. Desormeaux eased him at the top of the stretch and practically jogged him to the finish line.

"I'm numb," Desormeaux said. "A little lost. Just feeling no emotion whatsoever. Blank."

It was the kind of finish that left everybody searching for answers, wondering if a physical problem is what stopped the horse that Dutrow essentially guaranteed would win the Triple Crown.

Maybe it was the quarter-crack in his left front foot that had compromised his training after the Preakness. Dutrow said the injury was healed, but Big Brown ran with a fiberglass patch on the foot.

Maybe it was the decision to take the horse off steroids last month. Or the broiling heat that topped out at 96 degrees.

"I got no idea," Dutrow said.

Dutrow wore the same powder blue dress shirt and red tie he had worn for the Florida Derby, Kentucky Derby and Preakness. This time the shirt wasn't lucky. This time the shirt was soaked with sweat. This time Dutrow stared at the ground, a wise guy without any one-liners to save him. For the first time in two months, he wasn't calling anybody "Babe."

"I was looking for a problem," he said. "So far I can't say that I see a problem. We're going to scope the (horse's lungs). Maybe we'll see a problem (today). Something has to not be right for him to be pulled up in race."

The wise-cracking trainer who had all the answers for the last five weeks had none after his horse was taken to the post-race test barn to cool out. He walked fine. He looked fine. He just ran miserably."This horse was in no way, shape or form lame or sore, but there is something amiss," Desormeaux said. "He's probably just tired."

Dr. Larry Bramlage, an equine surgeon who was acting as a media resource for the Belmont, was asked if Big Brown could have been affected by being withdrawn from steroids. Bramlage, who emphasized that he had not examined the horse, said he doubted it would have been a factor "because it's not that kind of situation where it's going to be a stimulant for him. The anabolic steroids keeps him eating and keeps him healthy and keeps him aggressive, all of which he showed all week long. So I kind of doubt it."

Trainer D. Wayne Lukas said: "I think they compromised his training schedule to adjust to the quarter-crack. I think they thought he was good enough to overcome it."

More than one opposing trainer took as much delight in the upset as Dutrow had taken in deriding the opposition for the past five weeks. Dutrow practically called the horses Big Brown was competing against a collection of goats and Chihuahuas.

You remember the Dutrow quotes: "I envision him (winning) by daylight. Easily. I just don't see no dogfight in this race. He's not running against a real tough crowd, and he's a really good horse."

Horses can't read. Trainers can. Some of the opposing connections were conflicted when Smarty Jones was stopped one victory short of the Triple Crown. Ditto with Funny Cide the year before that.

I didn't sense much of that yesterday. As a solemn Dutrow followed his horse to the Belmont backstretch, perturbed fans in the crowd of 94,476 heckled him, barking that he had run an injured horse and that the colt wasn't as good as Dutrow's mouth had promised.

David Carroll trains Denis of Cork, the colt who finished a determined third in the Derby and then skipped the Preakness to take his shot in the Belmont. Carroll is another old-school trainer. The first thing he learned was not to talk about another man's horse.

Denis of Cork finished second yesterday. Was he sorry that racing did not have a Triple Crown to celebrate?

"No, I'm not," Carroll said. "At least not this year. Basically what (Dutrow) was saying about my horse was that he was a p.o.s. I knew that he wasn't. It rubbed me the wrong way. There's a right way to win and a wrong way to win."

Carroll wasn't the only one. Zito, remember, also trained Birdstone, the horse that stopped Smarty Jones' race for the Triple Crown four years ago. If Zito felt some sadness then, he expressed none yesterday.

"Mom and Pop don't go for (the boasting), but he don't mean anything by it," Zito said. "That's his style. But, you're right, before honor, humility. I can say that. I know that.

"You gotta be humble. There's no question this game will humble kings. You want that quote, you got it. This sport will humble kings, before honor there's humility. That good enough?"

It certainly was yesterday, babe.

Mike Kane contributed to this story.Rick Bozich Courier Journal