Big Brown is BOSS

[SoCalMan2]

Don\'t want to rain on your parade, Alm, but there is another factor nobody has mentioned so far about Big Brown -- to wit, the horse has yet to react!  

In my book, I never give a horse a reaction until he has given me a reaction.  We simply have no idea what a horse is until he reacts.  I do not want to scare people, but what happens if Big Brown steps forward in the Kentucky Derby?  I know it sounds crazy to say a young 3 year old can run a minus X and then actually come back in his next start and run a minus 2X, but why not?  If you saw a three year old who ran a 20-17-14 in its first three races, what would you expect him to run in his fourth race?  You would have to give him a significant percentage chance of moving forward.  Well, the only difference with Big Brown is that his three races are so huge you have to think they must take a toll.  But, without knowing what the horse\'s baseline is, how can you judge that?  Remember, this is a 3 year old, early in the season, making only his third start of the year, with good rest into the race.  All conditions militate more towards moving forward than towards going backward.  While I would have to think that the chances of him moving forward are not high, I do not think they can be reasonably said to be non-existent.

Again, I am not excited about betting a favorite, but I would have to think that this horse could end up being very hard to go against.

[ronwar]

I think he can OFF (ala Smarty Jones) and have a great chance to still win. What is considered an X? 3pts or more? Heck, he can back up 4pts and win! Especially if he gets lets say a 1w 1w trip or a 2w 1w. Everyone behind him will be grinding away.  I have not seen anyone with a nice turn of foot or who could be cut off and come on again (if I missed him, please point\'em out)

My guess is he will not have the best figure coming out of the race, but he doesn\'t have too...which gets me to thinking, how many times have the best figure not won the Derby?

[miff]

Ronwar,

\"I have not seen anyone with a nice turn of foot or who could be cut off and come on again (if I missed him, please point\'em out)\"


Ron,

Pyro has an exceptional turn of foot which he has sustained going up to 1@ 1/16 mile. Whether he can make his same powerful run at the 1 @ 1/4 distance is the only question he has not answered. No one is considering that his two slow  preps figs were mainly the result of extremely slow paces where he could not make up time on the clock. Had the paces been fast, I am certain he would have been in the zero range or lower.

On the bright side of Pyro, he should not be gutted from making a late run off two very slow paces. Now he polys, how fast could he possibly go in there?.On the dark side, I was not impressed that he did not separate and run away from that pace setting 70-1 shot,last race,the last 70 yards.Maybe the pace was just so slow that the 70-1 has some gas left.


Mike

[alm]

When BB ducked towards the rail in the stretch in the Fl Derby he told you everything you needed to know.

Keep pumping him.  Pyro and Col John are the contenders.

[bellsbendboy]

With respect to all the posters this thread, we have not had our morning cup of brown kool aid yet.  No questioning \"Brown\'s talent but...

On pedigree, there is little to suggest that a mile and a quarter in May of his sophomore year will suit.  His bobbing and weaving in the Florida Derby noted.  Brown\'s sire, Boundary\'s best offspring is probably Pomeroy.   Out of a Seeking the Gold mare, Pomeroy won graded stakes up to seven furlongs.  In Pomeroy\'s first seventeen starts he had three layoffs, each longer than seven months.

On soundness, \"Brown has issues.  The initial 2 million offer was rejected due to \"an ankle\" and Brown has had more sixty day layoffs than he has had races.  His glue on, five hundred dollar shoes, with copiuos quantities of fiberglass implants will not go over well, at Churchill, a clay based track which is notoriously unkind to bad footed horses.

It has been twelve days since the Florida Derby and no works. Now he has to work thrice in 24 days.  Aware that Dutrow is a chemically capable magician but Brown needs a practicing podiatrist.  Our host, posted a few days ago that \"Brown was about fifty percent to be in the gate and as Rich posted the probability of an x is about fifty percent. A little early to engrave the trophy indeed!  BBB

[ajkreider]

What is the argument here?  That there are good reasons to toss the favorite in the Derby?  I would have thought this was obviously true, of every Derby - just based on the size of the field.  We don\'t even have the draw!!

Of course there are soundess issues.  (Scat Daddy\'s bar shoes certainly did him no favors last year.)  But speculating on that now is a bit silly (as was betting BB late in the futures pool).  We will have to wait a couple of weeks to know this. But since we don\'t have to bet now, what is the point?

If the issue is that BB seems to have the talent to regress and still win, that also seems pretty clearly true.  I\'ll trust the clock over breeding.

On the workouts issue, why is it a problem for BB to get sufficient work in 24 days?  When will the Bluegrass and last week\'s stakes runners get their works in?  If the answer is that the races count as a work, doesn\'t the same apply to BB - he just got a harder work in a week earlier?

[alm]

Uh oh...these posts are getting too intelligent.

I agree there is no magic in the number of works the horse has in the period between his races.  However, it\'s the amount and intensity of his overall training that will tell whether or not they are coddling him.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I think they will run this horse on three legs if it comes to that...it takes unusal and caring connections (Neil Drysdale and AP Indy) to do what\'s best for a horse when the Kentucky Derby is beckoning an owner.

You only get one shot, so more often than not, they take it.

I admit I am underinformed on BB\'s infirmities.  I had only read that he had hoof problems, which is bad enough.  But if there was an ankle issue, which makes a ton more sense given how he ducked to the rail after running into the Gulfstream stretch, he is toast.

Still, I hope a lot of people bet on him, so I can find a value horse somewhere else in the field.

[BitPlayer]

Three issues seem to keep coming up regarding BB\'s soundness:

Quarter cracks:  Here\'s a link to a blog post about an interview done with Dutrow concerning BB\'s problems, what\'s been done about them, and where they stand.

http://hoofcare.blogspot.com/2008/04/big-browns-trainer-richard-dutrow-says.html

Florida Derby stretch run:  I\'m amazed that no one in the mainstream racing press has done more with this, like interview Kent Desormeaux.  I haven\'t been able to watch a head-on of the stretch, but I\'ve seen posts from people who have and I\'ve looked at the pan shot.  The problem was that he bore out, not that he bore in.  As he started his run through the stretch, he started to drift out.  KD hit him right-handed, but he continued to drift.  Finally, KD pulled on the left rein and got BB over to the rail.  (As TGJB noted in another thread, there\'s an ugly looking step in there somewhere.)  After KD got him over to the rail and started hand riding him, BB drifted out again through the wire.

Work pattern:  Based on the patterns I\'m used to seeing, I wouldn\'t expect a work until two weeks after a race, which would mean this coming weekend.  Barbaro worked only twice between his Florida and Kentucky Derbies, with the first work not coming until 3 weeks after the Florida Derby.

[ronwar]

I just do not get Pyro.  If you want to toss someone, he is my guy.  Everyone is in love with him, for good reason perhaps.  He will not be in the top four spots on my tickets.  If this guys was on the west coast in any year, even before the cushion stuff running those numbers, my guess is a lot of you guys would be saying too slow. And after this cushion try it will be three races he has not got\'n back to his 2yr old top (can\'t wait to hear what TG says about that), which was in the slop by the way. It\'s that east coast bias I suppose. Outside of the slop performance, he\'s like the the rest of \'em.  To me there are a handful of horses that will be double digits just as fast. With 20 horses, his racing style, I\'m betting him to find traffic and flat\'n out.  Pyro is a mirage! I hope he wins Saturday or closes like a freight train, but something tells me he wont

[Rick B.]

alm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As I mentioned in previous posts, I think they
> will run this horse on three legs if it comes to that

That\'s a fairly irresponsible statement -- unless you have any prior examples of Dutrow and owner IEAH Stables running horses that are unfit. Do you?  
 
> I admit I am underinformed on BB\'s infirmities.
 
And with thy own tongue...or fingers, in this case.

[congaree1]

If BB gets a clean trip or anything close, he will have a big shot. Curlin ran thrird, after a terrible trip.

[Lance]

Talent alone doesn\'t win the Derby. Never has, never will. It takes talent AND foundation, both physical and mental.

A lot of truly talented horses have tried the Derby off three or four lifetime starts: Curlin, Indian Charlie, Congaree, Medaglia d\'Oro, High Limit, Flower Alley, Stephen Got Even, Air Forbes One, Showing Up, etc.

It\'s a pretty impressive list.

And yet none of them could pull it off.

That long, long run down the Churchill backstretch -- coupled with a full field of 20, plus 150,000 screaming people -- demands so much from a horse, takes so much stamina to endure the frenzy of it all. It\'s a very strange and unusual dynamic, and one that I believe requires more foundation than Big Brown could possibly have. I\'ll have no trouble tossing him from the win spot come Derby day.

[congaree1]

Very true Lance, But the trip is very important.

Street Sence: Super clean on the rail from last to 1st.
Barbaro: Sat a great trip was never touched, was never more then 4 lengths of the
front end, then rolled when asked.

Smart Jones: Perfect trip as one can have!

Funny Cide: Another great trip! Empire maker was better but the trip cost him.

War Emblem: The perfect isolated front end trip! I believe with a better trip last year Curlin would have at least run 2nd, but he was mangled all over the place.

Giacomo: I still thin the worst derby i have ever watched. Afleet Alex was much the best of the entire crew, but his trip was terrible to say the least.

[alm]

Thanks for the post...it\'s difficult to know exactly what was happening with this horse, down the lane, and you can read the actions several different ways, for sure.  Personally I thought the drifting out at the head of the stretch indicated a general tiring and slowing.  Desormeaux tried to straighten him out, as most jockeys would do, and that would have been ok if he moved over some...however, the horse kept veering all the way to the rail, which I will bet was not where Desormeaux wanted him to go...too much wasted ground.

For a horse that came into the race with soundness questions, the movement is a bad, bad sign, no matter why it was happening.  When a horse drifts or bears in or out, he is usually running away from the pain, favoring his opposite side.  This animal may be the most brilliant runner of his crop, but he won\'t be the first of that type to suffer from an infirmity.

The real point of this site is to identify quality and to identify value.  There isn\'t going to be any value in betting this horse.  But I leave that to others.

[Eight Belles]

I agree with Ronwar.  What\'s with the love affair with Pyro?  Colonel John makes a little more sense since it could be guessed that he may improve on dirt.  People talk of Pyro\'s big kick but big kicks can happen pretty easily when the horse is going slow early.  A real turn of foot is what is shown by a horse who is running fast but still has another gear in which to accelerate quickly.  Pyro may be the best of the group in the Blue Grass but he\'ll probably win again in a performance that doesn\'t really impress.  

If Brown is working well over the Churchill surface leading into the race and shows no signs of a physical issue, it\'d be bone-headed to ignore him.  There\'s no comparison to Curlin because there\'s no Street Sense and Hard Spun in this Derby.