Da' Tara spoils Big Brown's bid for Triple Crown

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Associated Press

By BETH HARRIS

NEW YORK (AP) - Big Brown straggled home last Saturday, losing the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown to 38-1 long shot Da' Tara. Da' Tara went wire-to-wire, with 1-4 favorite Big Brown running third most of the way until jockey Kent Desormeaux asked him for one of his explosive runs on the far turn.

He had nothing to give. "I had no horse," Desormeaux said.

Big Brown was eased up before he even finished the 1 1/2 miles, the longest and toughest of the three classics.


Jockey Alan Garcia rides Da'Tara down the stretch to win the 140th Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y. on Saturday, June 7, 2008. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

Trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. said all week long the horse's victory was "a foregone conclusion." Boy, was he wrong.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20080608/D915IA5O0.html

[spindrifter]

1. Da'tara didn't spoil BB's bid...

I don't know if we'll ever know why Big Brown finished last. At least there was no catastrophic injury in the race.

[Mz Pip]

3. He had a cracked hoof

a couple of weeks ago. It was sort of downplayed as not particularly serious, but if you're hurting, you're hurting. Who knows what the horse's feeling were. Maybe he hurt a lot more than people anticipated.

[Runcible Spoon]

17. I honestly think they didn't push him because of that, not that it excuses it at ALL

but if they ran that horse HARD, and his foot split, Big Brown's trainers and owners run a very good chance of putting the final nail in the coffin of this brutal industry.

[MadMaddie]

4. Big Brown shouldn't have been racing ....he had a broken hoof

http://www.sportsline.com/horseracing/story/10842478

they say that it didn't bother him.......kinda obvious it did.

[flvegan]

5. Wouldn't running an injured horse be considered abuse?

Someone should maybe look into that.

[Omaha Steve]

6. Agreed

But BIG money at stake. Won't happen to this industry.

[Xenotime]

24. Exactly. Where's PETA?

[The Stranger]

31. If PETA said anything, I'm sure they'd be attacked by all of the "Progressives" here.

Happens every fucking time.

[TomInTib]

7. Can you believe the rabbit won?

Garcia is going to be hearing about this for a few years.

38-1 went wire-to-wire.

I believe that quarter-crack took a lot of harmonic out of Brown's stride, and I doubt that he was able to change leads.

[rocktivity]

2. Maybe the jockey held him back because he knew the horse couldn't do it

(on account of the cracked hoof) and didn't want to risk further injury.

:headbang:
rocknation

[liam_laddie]

19. Absolutely! Desmoreaux (sp?)

held him back in the third turn when he sensed his horse was hurting, or at least had no run left; you can watch the replay and see he took Brown outside to clear traffic. A smart move. Also, at the start, BB got off to a wobbly start, bounced around, wasn't running straight. Agree about too much steroid use.

[Endangered Specie]

30. Maybe he was paid to do it.

[two gun sid]

8. Big Brown was beaten by a couple of things...

mostly it was the distance of the Belmont, 1 1/2 miles. He missed training when he first popped the quarter crack and a horse needs to be dead fit to get that distance. Also he was sired by the stallion, Boundry, who is not known for getting stayers so, his breeding worked against him.

He broke well from the 1 hole but was bounced around a little going into the first turn. He layed just off the pace in 3rd, a perfect striking position. He just ran out of gas. Desormeaux eased him when he realized he wasn't gonna get a check. Big Brown walked off the track sound.

Congrats to Nick Zito and his horse Da'Tara.

[snooper2]

33. Wasn't the distance...he was pulling to get in front before first turn

If you watch the video you can see him pulling his head to the right and jockey had to fight him to keep him in the middle of the pack...

He ended up on the far outside and lost many valuable seconds there, he doens't like to run close to the rail

[two gun sid]

34. Take a look at the video at about the 3/4 pole...

Kent started scrubbing on Big Brown's neck asking him for a run and he got no answer. Big Brown didn't have anything in the tank. That doesn't mean he's a bad or cheap horse it just means he wasn't the best that day. They're horses, not machines. Remember, only 11 horses in the history of the Triple Crown have been able to close the deal. And those horses didn't miss any valuable training time leading up to a race.

[Divine Discontent]

9. With 2/3 of the Triple Crown already won - hoof be damned!

And also, they said the horse was pumped so full of steroids from the previous races, that they really shouldn't add any more (from what I understood in brief reading, if I'm wrong I apologize). But, I find it very disheartening that money outweighed their sense of being caring of the horse knowing its hoof was cracked and had been patched up before the race a few days back.


New Obama Items Weekly!
www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable

[NewEnglandGirl]

13. Everything You Said

is correct. BB had his last steroid injection on April 15. They decided not to give him anymore since then. He shouldn't have raced with that hoof injury. Giving steroids to race horses is banned in most states and there is a move to make it illegal in all, possibly by the end of this year.

I'm just happy he wasn't injured any more seriously in this race (as far as we know). He looked so out of sorts even before the race. I was forced to watch it because I was somewhere where I had no choice.

If you google this issue NY Times recently had a lengthy article on the steroid thing.

JMO - horse racing and dog racing suck.

[Towlie]

10. Sorry, but I think horse racing is boring.

If people weren't allowed to gamble on it, it would quickly dry up and die.

[Peregrine]

11. In a lot of states it is almost dead

In Maryland the only thing keeping the tracks open is OTB, Bingo, and poker rooms. I don't know if they have them yet, I left 5 years ago, but the Maryland tracks used to complain that they were hurting because Delaware tracks had slots and they didn't.

[girl gone mad]

18. Gawker had a story about..

men lining up to piss in a trash can at the Belmont today because the toilets were out.

Nasty! What kind of a skeezy business are they running?

[armodem08]

28. I'm pretty sure that they had to ration water. n/t

[NashVegas]

12. Would Big Brown Have Won Kentucky & Preakness w/out Steroids?

And if not, how many horses and riders that could have bested him, could have?

[Runcible Spoon]

16. ÍIRC, he wasn't roided out this time but was for the first two legs.

Guess we know what these horses run on. It's so tragic. Ónly thing I care about is that the horses LIVE through the races at least :grrr:

[cornfedyank]

14. $5,000,000 was bet on big brown at belmont today

that's what the announcers said. i wonder how much was bet on him all together?

[dysfunctional press]

15. correction... $5,000,000 was LOST on big brown at belmont today

i wonder how much was LOST on him altogether today?

[Gin]

20. Maybe he didn't like the "UPS" logo on the pants leg of the jockey, and the

huge "UPS" name on the jacket of the rider walking next to him before the race started. I thought that was odd.

Is UPS the new owner?

[rocktivity]

21. They couldn't resist asking for a piece of the action

since their slogan is "What can Brown do for you?"

:headbang:
rocknation

[Xenotime]

25. Poor advertisement. Big Brown Turd couldn't do anything.

I'll go with FedEx

[brentspeak]

27. What's with calling the horse a "turd"?

Did you lose money on the race? Call the owners and trainers a "turd", not the noble horse.

[lonestarnot]

22. Yeah and I loved how they treated the mexican jockey with broken english

:sarcasm: Fuckers.

[CANDO]

23. Was taken off 'Roids and look what happened.

Another "sport" in need of a housecleaning.

[Rhiannon12866]

26. I agree. It seems that they're all on Lasix, these days.

I asked my vet about it and he said that they all do it because the others all do it, so it gives them an equal chance. I grew up in Saratoga and my Dad would take us to the track to see the beautiful horses. This makes me very sad, since they are still growing, as two and three-year-olds... ;(

[Endangered Specie]

29. One step closer to the glue factory

[tuckessee]

32. One Horse Out? The Black Hooves?

Someone should be seriously investigating betting patterns.