Anybody gonna watch the Belmont tomorrow?

[cloudy]

We may have our first Triple Crown winner in thirty years tomorrow: Big Brown.

Not sure if he can handle the distance, but I'm still going to be watching and hoping.

 

[keeblercrumb]

We may have our first Triple Crown winner in thirty years tomorrow: Big Brown.

Not sure if he can handle the distance, but I'm still going to be watching and hoping.

No... sigh.... They just don't carry it on Russian TV... but maybe in a casino..

But I did just watch Seabiscuit last week AND a Seabiscuit documentary on Discovery channel this week!

Does that count?



-KC

 

[DesertPirate]

I just might, first time in 15 years.
It would be kind of neat but not really that big a deal to me.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Nope, too much of a dog person. Horses are so big they frighten me.

 

[cloudy]

Nope, too much of a dog person. Horses are so big they frighten me.

I've ridden and owned horses most of my life. Honestly, a domestic horse lives to please. They're wonderful animals.

If they didn't, why do you think they would tolerate doing what we ask them to? They could squash us, outrun us, etc., but they don't. Beautiful, intelligent animals. I adore them.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I don't deny their beauty. And I especially love the big pullers, Belgians and Clydes, but even though I grew up and still live within a couple of miles of a stable and a trail that goes clear to the mountains, riding just never did it for me. Genetic infantry, I guess.

 

[3113]

Got a friend who actually is flying (today) across the country and will be there to watch. I may try and catch it--they say Big Brown's competition is a horse from Japan?

 

[shereads]

I'm going to watch. I'm just not going to enjoy it.



Seriously - since you obviously know a lot more than most of us about the sport - do you think his cracked hoof is a concern? I'm going to hate it if Big Brown does poorly in this race, but it'll be just awful if he suffers a serious injury.

 

[jomar]

I am. I don't normally follow racing, but with a possible triple crown - must see tv, as the ad goes.

 

[cloudy]

I'm going to watch. I'm just not going to enjoy it.



Seriously - since you obviously know a lot more than most of us about the sport - do you think his cracked hoof is a concern? I'm going to hate it if Big Brown does poorly in this race, but it'll be just awful if he suffers a serious injury.

Will he be 100%? Probably not. Is it something along the lines of what happened at the Derby? No, not even close.

Reports say that the crack has been closed with metal sutures, and a sealant applied over that to keep it from getting worse. Apparently, it's not bothering him in the least, because his training has continued normally, and he's not limping or anything.

Horses' hooves are delicate, but they're also something along the lines of our fingernails. They grow back after injury. I've had horses develop horrible-looking abcesses in their hooves, but they grow out and heal with very little problems, and no long-term consequences, as long as they are treated.

His main competition is Casino Drive, who's trainer is Japanese. The last three Belmonts have been won by Casino Drive's siblings (same dam), and he's a superb distance horse. Something to consider in the Belmont.

 

[jomar]

I'm going to watch. I'm just not going to enjoy it.



Seriously - since you obviously know a lot more than most of us about the sport - do you think his cracked hoof is a concern? I'm going to hate it if Big Brown does poorly in this race, but it'll be just awful if he suffers a serious injury.

This just in from the Associated Press one hour ago:

Big Brown's cracked hoof is patched

NEW YORK (AP) — Big Brown has had a patch applied to his cracked hoof a day before his bid for the Triple Crown.

Hoof specialist Ian McKinlay applied an acrylic and fiberglass patch to the cracked left front foot Friday. The work comes the day before the undefeated colt races in the Belmont Stakes.

McKinlay says the procedure was routine and Big Brown never even knew he was hurt. Big Brown is trying to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed swept the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont in 1978.

 

[shereads]

I've ridden and owned horses most of my life. Honestly, a domestic horse lives to please. They're wonderful animals.

If they didn't, why do you think they would tolerate doing what we ask them to? They could squash us, outrun us, etc., but they don't. Beautiful, intelligent animals. I adore them.

I had some experience with horses as a child, and riding lessons, but never understood horses very well until I took a Montana vacation a few years ago and had a lesson from someone who taught us to "think" like horses - specifically, like prey animals, built to survive by running first and asking questions later.

He taught us that the horse had to first trust the rider not to take him into danger - and that we'd be well-served to trust our horses when riding through tall brush in grizzly-bear territory.

These were sturdy little mountain-bred horses, nothing fancy, but full of spunk, and they made trail-riding a joy. We plunged into ice-cold streams, stirrup-high, and my little mare Rushmore never hesitated. In a race over open land against four taller, more graceful geldings, Rushmore left all but one of them in her dust. She was mine for an entire week, and I never had a better vacation.

We were there for the last week before the ranch closed for the winter, and we got to see our horses released to roam free for the winter over several hundred acres of ranch and state-park land. That was fun - like seeing a bunch of kids racing out of school to start summer vacation. The horses' shoes were removed, then they were freed one at a time through an open corral gate into a world where the nearest fence was many miles away. They kicked up their heels and whinnied and raced across the meadow to join their buddies.

They faced a harsh winter, but we were assured that the horses knew which valleys and hillsides would provide shelter. Someday, I hope to go back for the opening week, when guests get to help bring in the horses. I did pretty well herding a stray cow and calf through the woods - in fact, the wrangler I rode with told me it only took him about half a day longer to gather the herd with the help of guests, than it would have taken with just him and a dog.



BTW - Dogs and cats live their fantasy life on a mountain ranch. I think it's what house dogs dream about.

 

[cloudy]

I had some experience with horses as a child, and riding lessons, but never understood horses very well until I took a Montana vacation a few years ago and had a lesson from someone who taught us to "think" like horses - specifically, like prey animals, built to survive by running first and asking questions later.

He taught us that the horse had to first trust the rider not to take him into danger - and that we'd be well-served to trust our horses when riding through tall brush in grizzly-bear territory.

These were sturdy little mountain-bred horses, nothing fancy, but full of spunk, and they made trail-riding a joy. We plunged into ice-cold streams, stirrup-high, and my little mare Rushmore never hesitated. In a race over open land against four taller, more graceful geldings, Rushmore left all but one of them in her dust. She was mine for an entire week, and I never had a better vacation.

We were there for the last week before the ranch closed for the winter, and we got to see our horses released to roam free for the winter. That was fun - like seeing a bunch of kids racing out of school to start summer vacation. The horses' shoes were removed, then they were freed one at a time through an open corral gate and set free. They kicked up their heels and whinnied and raced across the meadow to join their buddies.

They faced a harsh winter, but we were assured that the horses knew which valleys and hillsides would provide shelter. Someday, I hope to go back for the opening week, when guests get to help bring in the horses. I did pretty well herding a stray cow and calf through the woods - in fact, the wrangler I rode with told me it only took him about half a day longer to gather the herd with the help of guests, than it would have taken with just him and a dog.



BTW - Dogs and cats live their fantasy life on a mountain ranch. I think it's what house dogs dream about.

I train horses according to the John Lyons method, which teaches that you have to think like a prey animal first, then become the alpha horse in order to have your horse trust your decisions.

Nothing about his method is harsh, causes pain, or anything like that. It revolves completely around trust, and it's never failed me.

 

[shereads]

I train horses according to the John Lyons method, which teaches that you have to think like a prey animal first, then become the alpha horse in order to have your horse trust your decisions.

Nothing about his method is harsh, causes pain, or anything like that. It revolves completely around trust, and it's never failed me.

They're fascinating when someone teaches you to "read" them. The ears turn like two independent radar dishes.

 

[cloudy]

They're fascinating when someone teaches you to "read" them. The ears turn like two independent radar dishes.

They're also much smarter than most people give them credit for.

 

[shereads]

They're also much smarter than most people give them credit for.

Anybody will agree, who's tried to tighten the girth on a horse like one we had when my sister and I were kids - he had learned to take a deep breath and hold it until we finished saddling him, so we wouldn't know the saddle was loose until it was too late.

He was patient with kids, but when he got tired of playing cowgirls-and-horses, he'd just head for the nearest low-hanging tree branch.

 

[john-the-author]

We may have our first Triple Crown winner in thirty years tomorrow: Big Brown.

Not sure if he can handle the distance, but I'm still going to be watching and hoping.

A former lover of mine is going to be sitting in the owner's box with her sweetie. (I don't know who he's got running in the Belmont; it's not Big Brown.) She's told us to watch for her in her gown and hat.

 

[shereads]

At the Preakness: Nobody's back there. Did they all give up and go home?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3264/2556815011_7b3f61d984_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3134/2557637856_ed1c0866f6_o.jpg


An interview with Big Brown's personal assistant:

Big Brown's horse whisperer tells all: 'He's so vain.'

By Jim Litke
ASSOCIATED PRESS
3:59 p.m. June 6, 2008

NEW YORK – The real horse whisperer in Big Brown's barn is in the mood to dish on the game's latest leading man.

“He's so vain,” Michelle Nevin laughed in the cool morning air, “and he's getting more vain by the day. He thinks he's a rock star.”

Some surprise.

Cameras clicked with every step the strapping bay colt took Friday along the backstretch at Belmont Park, a nonstop photo-op that began at the Kentucky Derby and kicked into high gear at the Preakness. The next time Big Brown shows his long face in public, a chorus of 120,000 or so fans will be roaring with every stride.

If Nevin knows her man – and no one, not even trainer Rick Dutrow Jr., spends more time walking, talking to and working out the horse than she does – he will give the paparazzi exactly what they want, then lap up and savor every last bit of that attention.

“He's already, like, a step away from talking,” she said. “His facial expressions are so clear, you know exactly what he wants. And when he sees those cameras, it's unbelievable. He's like, 'I'm over here. You can take my picture now.'

“He is,” Nevin added, searching for the right word, “totally spoiled.”

And she should know, since no one spoils Big Brown more than the 30-something Irish exercise rider and assistant trainer.

When he takes a bath, she's the one carefully combing his mane so wet strands of hair don't fall over his eyes. When the veterinarian stops by to glue on a shoe, she's the one cooing in the colt's ear, assuring him everything will be OK. And when Big Brown steps onto the track for his daily workout, she's the one in the saddle choreographing the ballet that Dutrow has chosen for that day.

Nevin has become so good at anticipating what Big Brown wants that it seems she's practiced for the role all her life – which is only a slight exaggeration. The daughter and granddaughter of trainers, she grew up in the countryside of County Tipperary, Ireland, following father Michael on her pony as he tended to the family's small racing operation. It was the first few steps on a journey that Nevin hopes will someday lead to a training stable of her own, preferably back on the auld sod.

She preferred reading about racing's great champions to schoolwork and watched “every movie that ever had a horse in it,” most of them more than once. Nevin had her heart set on becoming a jockey until a growth spurt in her teen years put that goal out of reach.

“Once I realized you can't eat that much, that plan went south,” she said. “I like my food too much.”

After exercising horses for her father at tracks here and back home, Nevin settled on these shores after taking a job with trainer Leo O'Brien, a fellow Irish immigrant. Then she worked for Kiaran McLaughlin and was freelancing when she hooked up with Dutrow a half-dozen years ago.

Nevin sensed her career was taking a turn for the better the moment she saw Big Brown step off the van at Dutrow's barn in Florida. She climbed aboard him soon after and hasn't yielded her seat to anyone but jockey Kent Desormeaux since. That's because she knew from Big Brown's first few ground-eating strides that he was a special horse.

“Some horses you've got to tell them what to do, to show them. Some horses you've got to stop them from doing too much. Some horses just know what to do, so you leave them alone and stay out of their way. That's Big Brown,” Nevin said. “Let him handle things and everything will go fine.”

She concedes it took a while to get used to the colt's way of doing things, which is to say Big Brown always insists on being in charge. That extends from his craving for peppermints – “He's like, 'Get it for me now!' – to his penchant for taking a nap on race days – “He's like, 'Well, I'll just lay down for a while,” Nevin said.

“Try and tell him what to do,” she added, “and he gets mad. He thinks he already knows everything.”

Big Brown has the chance to prove it one final time, over the taxing 1 1/2-mile Belmont oval. What the superstar colt may not know, however, is that no one will be pulling for him to win more than the people he'll leave behind when he begins the long walk to the starting gate.

“Everybody thinks about Big Brown and how good he could be for racing and the fans, but it's not just that,” she said. “There are so many people here working at this racetrack and others, seven days a week, all week long, and the money's not good. But it's their passion.

“For those people, this is what they come here, work for and wish for every day,” Nevin added, “to see this kind of horse.”

 

[shereads]

First undefeated Triple Crown contender to come in last - losing to the longest shot on the board! That's something, anyway.

Two thoughts:

1) Maybe this was not the best time for trainer Rick Dutrow to prove that his horse runs just as well without steroids in his system.



2) I don't know whether to be relieved that I don't gamble, or to bet that Dutrow is about to go on a two-week bender.




Edited to add: It may also have been a mistake to switch jockeys. I'm a big fan of Shaq's, but this one victory doesn't make him Belmont material:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAP9Rml8dQA

 

[colddiesel]

Not sure if he can handle the distance, but I'm still going to be watching and hoping.

Your suspicion he might not go the distance was spot on. Good judgment.

 

[jomar]

Your suspicion he might not go the distance was spot on. Good judgment.

I don't disagree, but it seemed more than just the distance. Something else was going on.

 

[jomar]

2) I don't know whether to be relieved that I don't gamble, or to bet that Dutrow is about to go on a two-week bender.

Dude sure was sweating more than anybody else. So I'm guessing, yeah.

Edited to add: It may also have been a mistake to switch jockeys. I'm a big fan of Shaq's, but this one victory doesn't make him Belmont material:

But if horse racing was like Nascar, Shaq would have used his gigantor hand to keep the pretender back and his other hand to drag/throw Big Brown to victory.

 

[pellso27]

At least he made it through the race ok I think he will be able to race and win more.

 

[cloudy]

I don't disagree, but it seemed more than just the distance. Something else was going on.

You'd be surprised at how much difference a quarter mile can make.

Just for an example: Quarterhorses are so named because they are the absolute fastest horse at a quarter mile distance. That's what they were bred for: to win races among the cow hands, and to be quick and agile enough to cut off a lead cow. I had a little filly that was a granddaughter of Quick Henry - the winningest racing Quarterhorse in history. She was so damn fast out of the gate when I barrelraced her that if you weren't ready for it, you'd go tumbling off her ass as she jumped right out from under you. Quckest damn horse I've ever owned.

Run her at even a few yards over a quarter mile? She turned from the quickest horse I'd ever owned into one that could barely pick up her feet, and was sucking wind.

On the other hand, I owned a thoroughbred right off the track from Florida - Silk Winds was his name. He was only five when I bought him, and he was as tall at the withers as I am (5' 7"). He knew two gaits: prance and look pretty on the way to be loaded into the gate, and run like hell.

That little Quarterhorse filly would have blown him away at the quarter mile, but it took that long for those long legs of his to hit his stride, and when he did, there wasn't a damn horse within a hundred miles that could catch him.

Some horses just do better at a shorter distance - it's what they're used to, it's how they're trained, and Big Brown may have given everything he had a little too soon, and not had the stamina he needed for that small extra quarter mile. It happens.

 

[shereads]

You'd be surprised at how much difference a quarter mile can make.

Just for an example: Quarterhorses are so named because they are the absolute fastest horse at a quarter mile distance. That's what they were bred for: to win races among the cow hands, and to be quick and agile enough to cut off a lead cow. I had a little filly that was a granddaughter of Quick Henry - the winningest racing Quarterhorse in history. She was so damn fast out of the gate when I barrelraced her that if you weren't ready for it, you'd go tumbling off her ass as she jumped right out from under you. Quckest damn horse I've ever owned.

Run her at even a few yards over a quarter mile? She turned from the quickest horse I'd ever owned into one that could barely pick up her feet, and was sucking wind.

On the other hand, I owned a thoroughbred right off the track from Florida - Silk Winds was his name. He was only five when I bought him, and he was as tall at the withers as I am (5' 7"). He knew two gaits: prance and look pretty on the way to be loaded into the gate, and run like hell.

That little Quarterhorse filly would have blown him away at the quarter mile, but it took that long for those long legs of his to hit his stride, and when he did, there wasn't a damn horse within a hundred miles that could catch him.

Some horses just do better at a shorter distance - it's what they're used to, it's how they're trained, and Big Brown may have given everything he had a little too soon, and not had the stamina he needed for that small extra quarter mile. It happens.

Do you think taking him off of steroids may have been a factor?