Is there any non-medical explanation for the horse to look so bad in the Belmont? I hope he’s okay…
They say Big Brown is a smart horse. I think he bet against himself. 
He seemed to be favoring his right hind leg when he pulled up. The cracked hoof was his left fore.
When they were walking him after the race, it looked to me that he was off on his right front.
Hmmm, and he didn’t look lame at all to me, but I very easily may have missed it. Even if he seemed sound, it can be hard to tell with adrenaline-laden TBs anyway.
Some speculation I’ve heard other than lameness…
He didn’t like the heat (it was 93 degrees there)
He didn’t like the distance
3 big races in 5 weeks was too much for him
His training was disrupted due to the quarter crack issue and he’s a horse that needs the routine
He doesn’t do as well off steroids
He has a minor low-grade cold, infection, etc.
He just wasn’t in the mood
Some combination of the above
We may never know. It’s horse racing and sometimes they just don’t perform and you never figure out why. Plus, I don’t completely trust Dutrow to be 100% honest anyway.
Well, Kent Desourmeaux, Big Brown’s jockey, said Big Brown was just “out of gas.”
That’s the simplest explanation, and the most likely. The colt’s minor injury cost him a bit of training time, and that may have made some difference… but down the stretch, he just looked tired. Desourmeaux had him positioned right where he wanted him as they headed into the final turn… but Big Brown just didn’t have any energy left to make the stretch run.
Bad horsie biorhythms.
The Belmont needs fung shui-ing?
Bah. We’ve had so many Derby-Preakness winners fail in the Belmont recently, I can’t even get excited about the possibility of a Triple Crown anymore. I don’t know if it might have been different in the past, but maybe the Preakness and Kentucky Derby are too similar to be distinct “jewels”? Sure, not every Derby winner wins the Preakness, but it’s obviously the Belmont that provides a very different challenge for horses.
If you’ve never seen the fastest horse ever at the Belmont, the record was set in 1973 in the most incredible finish ever. If you like horseracing and you’ve never seen Secretariat winning the Triple Crown, treat yourself.
It’s amazing that perhaps the most one-sided big horserace ever could also be among the most exciting. Secretariat was running as if he knew exactly what was at stake and had decided he wanted his place in history.
With no horse pushing him, his time was a record by more than 2.5 seconds (an absurd margin) and more than 5.5 seconds better than yesterday’s winner. Which means he’d have won that race with the same kind of lead he had in 1973.
It’s obvious. He ran the race on one leg. It’s amazing he finished at all. 
Big Brown hasn’t shown the slightest lameness, according to the track vet (who would NOT mess that up unless he wanted a LOT of people to come after him at night) as well as trainer Rick Dutrow. Some folks in one of the racing forums claim to have seen similar off-ish movements, but the general thought is they’re looking to find something and the majority saw nothing. I saw no lameness, just a rank horse who ran out of gas–nothing unusual.
He was not lame and had no obvious injury.
He did not appear heat stressed.
He may have flipped his palate or bled from his lungs, but my money is on BB just running a bad race. Going into the first turn, the horse looked uncharacteristically rank and overeager. It was the first time in his green racing career he was boxed in, and the first time he really had dirt hitting him in the face. Still, the jock was able to get him to the outside and out of traffic early on, and they were in perfect position the rest of the race. But some horses–War Emblem comes to mind–can throw a real tantrum when the race doesn’t go their way, and simply quit rather than try and overcome circumstance. Not sure if that’s what BB experienced, but as a green horse facing such new challenges, it’s a possibility.
Dutrow also said the colt did not get his May 15 dose of Winstrol (steroid). Folks on the racing forum say this is perplexing as a horse coming off steroids can experience a crash–it made no sense to do it in the middle of the Triple Crown except to try and prove a point. He may have–but the wrong point. Still, other folks say steroid crash is unlikely this early on, so who knows. And further still–some have quoted Dutrow a few weeks ago saying the colt did get the 5/15 dose–so who knows. The guy has had 72 racing offenses since 1979, 2 in January this year alone. (Cite is the article linked below.) Who knows what the truth is.
I will say that this racing fan is relieved. Sure, I want to see a Triple Crown winner, and BB seems a nice horse, but his connections are just about the ugliest sort in the industry. Meanwhile, the winning Belmont trainer is a great guy with a great rep. I was happy to see he won.
Edited to add: this article sums up how I, and a lot of racing fans, feel about BB’s connections.
Some might say, only half-joking, that Big Brown’s loss was due to his connections angering the racing gods.
This article represents how many people I have talked to feel:
I frequent a horse forum that has a lot of posters that are much more knowledgeable about the racing aspect of horses than I am.
The consensus there, at the end of a 400+ post thread, is that “What happened to Big Brown” is steroid withdrawal.
Why the trainer decided to withhold his last injection is another question.
And it’s legal in New York anyway, right?
Regardless of it all, Big Brown has secured himself a nice career as a celebrity stud. We should all give him a hearty congratulations at the prospect of being well-fed, and getting some face time with all the top hotties of the racing world. Kudos Big Brown, you earned it.
It isn’t exactly “face” time for horses, though.
And the mares will be wondering if he can finish, too.
Quite possibly the best horse race ever, and that despite the fact there was absolutely no “race” worth mentioning. I remember watching it; it was enough to send goosebumps up and down my arms as it happened. :eek:
Correct, entirely legal.
Someone claims the trainer stated that he wanted to show the world that Big Brown could win without the steroids, and withheld the treatment for that reason. If so, it was poor timing to say the least. I’ve been unlucky enough to be around humans undergoing steroid withdrawal. Suffice to say one is not at one’s best during that time, so a horse probably isn’t either.