BIG BROWN

The same principles involved in the 2nd run syndrome apply , and are the biggest obstacles faced by any triple crown hopeful, it's the same principles which side swiped consensual on saturday, and the clues are always around the ribcage. It's why i wouldn't touch consensual with a shilling on the day.

The trainers still try to run the rapidly downwinding machine, in the offchance that it can be held together enough to keep some of it's condition. Sometimes it pays off -- mostly it doesn't .....and when it doesn't...it's just too damn sad. In fact even when it does pay off - it's still just too damn sad.

Big Brown was too good to be overcome by a 50kg human wrestling him, by a bad draw, by racing wide......but no horse is too good to overcome the biology and physiology of the equine species, and at times that Biology turns the best horse in the world, over to something quite ordinary. Two triple crown hopefuls beaten by 30+/1 shots....is that really representative of their potential. NO...

Everybody should learn that there is a threshold in a horses training program, which can only be addressed by RESTING. Sad that they give us so much pleasure, love and loyalty --- yet we insist on pushing them over the egde.

Top Jock but very disappointing never got close. Maybe still feeling something on the cracked hoof.

Whoisu - thanks man. Great reply. You are probably right on this and I am starting to accept ever so slightly that BB did not have it in him to win on the day. But one will always question when there is so much money on the line. Lets be honest where there is big money there will always be a certain amount of corruption somewhere.

The hollywood ending still pisses me of though. If only these animals could run without assistance sometimes.

Especially when you consider that the same trainer unravelled those plans of both hopefuls in the same way.....definitely food for thought.


Rather though I think the other trainer just a shrewd horseman, who knows that the triple crown hopefuls are at their most vulnerable in the last leg....

Interested to see that no-one has questioned whether the horse choked up in running. I've had a horse that was fancied to run well also tail in last after the jockey said that he had nothing left in the tank. But the on course vet mentioned that he heard the horse make an odd breathing noise for a few seconds at the pull up & he felt that there was the possibility that he had got his epiglotis over his palate & choked up inthe running as he couldn't breathe. Also had fought the rider for the 1st few hundered meters which is when he most probably choked up & effectively nearly swollowed his tongue.

Just watching the race it looked like the same scenario - I've subsequently checked websites & do not see this possibilty raised which surprises me. Maybe a vet could give a better opinion and/or theory.

I watched the race repeatedly and you may be on to something. In the beginning BB wanted to go for the front but the genius pulled him back and BB threw his head up.

You may think that what I am about to say is crazy: I truly believe that BB had a plan for this race too and that was to bullet to the front and stay there. The horse and the Jockey just did not connect and its a great pity that history was not made.

The GOLDEN RULE when you own a serious racehorse.Proven right over many years and world wide.
KNOW WHAT RACES YOU SHOULD MISS!!!
Top trainers abide by this rule and every time they break it they are proved wrong.

GERI Wrote:

---

> The GOLDEN RULE when you own a serious
> racehorse.Proven right over many years and world
> wide.
> KNOW WHAT RACES YOU SHOULD MISS!!!
> Top trainers abide by this rule and every time
> they break it they are proved wrong.

True - in theory. Yet who amongst us would lightly turn up the opportunity to achieve something which has not been done in three decades? Who would pass up on the chance to walk in the footsteps of giants like Secretariat?

I wouldn't. I admit it freely - if I owned Big Brown, he would have run in the Belmont. I would only be lying to myself if I said otherwise. In hindsight it was a monumental c*ck-up, and perhaps the biggest anti-climax in the modern history of racing, but that's all too easy now.

BTW, bear in mind that every horse in the Belmont field is going 2400m for the first - and often last - time in his/her life. It's uncharted territory for all of them from the top of the lane, and the jockeys don't get too many chances to hone their skills over 2400m in the USA, either. Interesting, isn't it, that every after-the-race merchant blamed Smarty Jones' defeat in the 2004 Belmont on the jockey taking him to the front, and now some of those same experts are slating BB's pilot for trying to hold him up.

Heads I win, tails you lose.

I personally would have strongly voted against the Belmont - too soon after hoof injury, what if hed badly broken down and had to be destroyed? Something thet I couldn't have forgiven myself for.

No sorry, there's always another race - the BC for instance against Curlin, would have enhanced his status just as much, if not more than The Belmont.

My TuppenceJim.

Neil Drysdale was in this same position with A. P. Indy, the difference being that Indy's foot was bothering him before the Kentucky Derby, not the Belmont.

Even though both his blacksmith and vet wanted Neil to run Indy, he refused, robbing the colt of the most sure Triple Crown in our lifetime.

But Neil did what he thought was the right thing.

A. P. Indy went on to win the Preakness and the Belmont (over my English import My Memoirs), Horse of the Year and a very successful career at stud.

Old story No hoof,no horse.
Pocket Power has suffered with hoof problems but was nursed to miss Cape summer season.Went on to win the Winter series and greater races thereafter.
A lesson for all

> GERI Wrote:
>
> > The GOLDEN RULE when you own a serious
> > racehorse.Proven right over many years and
> world
> > wide.
> > KNOW WHAT RACES YOU SHOULD MISS!!!
> > Top trainers abide by this rule and every time
> > they break it they are proved wrong.
>
> Geri, 2 years ago Frodo & I had the chance to win 1 million BONUS with Asylum SEEKER in Durban..if she won the last leg of the tripple crown for 2 y.o.
No other colt or filly had a chance to win this lucritive bonus.
we had sh!t for luck, we were drawn in the car park 15/16 over 1600m at clairwood.
we knew the draw was against us, but we felt WE HAD TO HAVE A GO AT THE TRIPPLE CROWN. Had she pulled this off... what would she have been worth ? everything went wrong for us, & a horse next to her came down in the race. We finished 5th & our DREAM was shattered.

Geri what i am getting at, is when there is a chance of something great.... even a small chance, one is tempted to have a go... & that's where theory goes out the window.... & is this the right race for us or not.Only time will tell.

owners & trainer of BB felt they had to have a go at the illustrius TRIPPLE crown, unfortunately they got it horribly wrong.

what is that famous saying - " better to have tried & lost, than not to have tried at all "

food for thought.