Belmont Stakes running thread

Because there's a good shot at a triple crown for the first time since I was in elementary school.

Big Brown: three excellent hooves.

What? What?!? I was trying to be optimistic!

Okay then ... Big Brown: one hoof in bad shape, but trainer says problem resolved.

With exciting, useful USA Today infographic and bad pun in the hed.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/horses/2008-05-26-dutrow-bigbrown_N.htm

 

Three out of four ain't bad.

He'll run.

But what this does is markedly-increase the already-significant percentage chance that he won't be seen on a racetrack in the afternoon after the Belmont, ever again . . . no matter what Tricky is saying about the Travers and the BC Classic.

 

They blew about five days of training with him. They need every day they can steal.

 

Talked to a racing guy recently. He compared the way horses are handled to the way MLB franchises treat young pitchers.

 

There's a lot of babying, now.

But imagine the SPCA if they saw Woody take thirty 2-year-olds, lean on 'em all, and wind up with four good ones.

 

The guy I talked to said that one of the Triple Crown winners in the 1940s or 1950s (I forget the name of the horse) ran the Derby, Preakness, a smaller race at Belmont and the Belmont Stakes. His argument was that the more the horses run, the stronger they will become.

He went on to say that, win or lose at Belmont, Big Brown will not run again. Maybe I'm wrong, but if you have a dominant horse, doesn't it behoove the sport to have it run in the Travers and other races?

 

Citation won the Derby, Preakness, Jersey Derby, and Belmont in six weeks, in '48.

After running only fifteen times as a 2-year-old (the lazy bum), Count Fleet won the Derby, Preakness, Withers (at Belmont) and Belmont in five weeks, in '43. He never ran again.

Whirlaway won the Derby, Preakness, a $2500 Belmont allowance race, and Belmont in five weeks, in '41. Preakness was run ONE WEEK after the Derby, that year.

Would it behoove the sport to see BB in one piece, in the Travers? Yes. But we've seen what happens sometimes when horses run "for the good of the sport" (Ruffian, in the Great Match Race . . . among many others).

 

The owners of BB don't give a damn about what their horse can do for horse racing. And considering the piles of $$$ at stake, I don't think I would, either. They are most concerned about getting that horse into the breeding shed and under the wire first in the Belmont -- and in that order. At this point, their investment can only lose value.

 

Somehow I don't see Dutrow being terribly worried about the good of horse racing right about now.

 

Interesting . . . annual North American thoroughbred foal crops during the '40s (Whirlaway/Count Fleet/Citation time . . . ) were just short of 7,000.

These days, it's some 37.000.

Much less competition, back then . . . not to mention FAR less racing, nationwide.