Unless something comes up in scientific testing over the next few days or weeks to explain Big Brown's sluggish run at the end of the Belmont Stakes Saturday, the legacy of the powerful bay who was a prohibitive favorite to finally break through the three-decade barrier of the Triple Crown is likely to be mystery.
Why did he not run in the Belmont as he always did? As he did in the Florida Stakes, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
Not only had Big Brown won five straight, none were even close. And so, in the absence of some absolute determination, there will be theories and conjecture. At the top of any list will be how much steroids or lack thereof, helped or hurt Big Brown. Of course, the crack in his hoof and its ramifications will be debated, including the loss of training time. One of his owners tossed out that the track might have been too deep. And then there's the oppressive heat and humidity that hung over the Northeast United States that day. Now it's being suggested that trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. may have altered the horse's intake of electrolytes which would prevent dehydration (and that's not even known for sure at this point). And I'll be surprised if we don't hear some exotic conspiracy theories, of course tied to wagering
The easier explanation is simply that on this Saturday in June, the horse just didn't feel like running as hard he normally does. We tend to anthropomorphize animals -- credit them with characteristics that are human. In Big Brown's case, because we considered the Belmont the biggest horse race in the last several years, the horse was supposed to get that too. Well, Big Brown ran hard for the first two-thirds of that race and for whatever reason, when he came around that far turn, he figured enough was enough. Perhaps to him, he was just on another gallop around some track for exercise.
But I doubt that's going to satisfy human observers. You see, we have our own psychological needs. For instance, we need to make sense out things that don't make sense. Ancient man did it with natural phenomena. The sun comes up in the east and sets in the west. The weather changes from hot to mild to cold to mild to hot. Twinkling lights in the sky move around. And so our ancestors, ignorant of the universe and nature, came up with elaborate explanations of gods and goddesses acting out to make it light or dark, warm or cool, the earth fertile and barren.
And Big Brown's performance will be scrutinized because it's in our nature to seek out reasons which also means that something or someone has to be at fault. Reasons and blame go hand-in-hand. In the case of the Triple Crown, when a horse falls short in the Belmont, the jockey gets the heat -- maybe he brought the horse out too quickly. Kent Desormeaux on Real Quiet, Chris Antley on Charismatic, Stewart Elliot on Smarty Jones. This time, there's a convenient fall guy, the mouthy trainer, Rick Dutrow Jr., who no one cared for anyway. It's not in our nature to blame the animal.
And so the guessing and speculation and theories about Big Brown will become sports of sports lore, sort of the way Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Steve Blass' sudden and utter loss of control after an All-Star season became one of baseball's imponderables. At least in the case of Blass, the guy could discuss what had happened to him. In Big Brown's case, though, we'll never get a definitive explanation from the horse's mouth.
