posted June 6, 2008 at 16:03 in Triple Crown Betting Trends

The word came out suddenly as if someone had dropped an anvil onto the collective minds of those online horse race betting players winning ticket on Richard Dutrow’s Triple Crown threat, Big Brown.

By anvil, I mean a serious cartoon type anvil, the kind that could squash the dreams of many a horseman. Big Brown, who just a few days ago was in “perfect shape” and “wouldn’t have any problem” due to the quarter-crack on his hoof, won’t get the special patch that super-vet Ian McKinlay wanted to put onto the hoof this Monday or Tuesday. Instead, Big Brown will receive the patch on Friday. That’s right. A day before the 2008 Belmont Stakes. Why is the change in schedule a big deal?

Well, first, McKinlay said that the patch would be applied either on Monday or Tuesday. Now, it’s Friday. That means, to me, that something different has changed since McKinlay first let online horse racing fans know when the patch was to be placed on Big Brown’s hoof.

What changed? Well, the connections of Big Brown aren’t saying. But veterinarians don’t just willy-nilly change plans. They have reasons. Supposedly, McKinlay wants the horse’s hoof to heal more on “it’s own.” To me, that doesn’t mean much. To me, it sounds as if the vet, and everybody associated with Big Brown, is hiding the fact that maybe the quarter-crack is a bigger problem then they thought.

Why hasn’t it healed already? I mean, how do we go from “not a problem” to let’s wait until the day before the race to see if applying the patch then will help the horse?

We have to remember that Big Brown’s has already changed once. Now, he won’t even be able to get a work in before heading into the most grueling race of his life.

I hate to keep harping on this, but if this were the Tin Man and Richard “Papa” Mandella were training him, there’s no way this horse would even be considered to get a patch on Friday and then run in a 1 ½ mile race on Saturday.

This is ludicrous. As much as I want to see Big Brown run in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, I just can’t envision a horse, which hasn’t had a serious work in three weeks, able to negotiate a mile and a half around a sweeping, intimidating, racetrack.

This is especially true when we look at the fact that he will have to run against Casino Drive, who has gone through a very successful, albeit strange, training regimen while at Belmont Park, Denis of Cork, who looked terrific in his last work at Churchill Downs, and Tale of Ekati who is really coming into his own.

This is setting up as a disaster, in horse racing terms, on the proportion of the Titanic. What if Big Brown gets seriously hurt? It can happen in any race. Aren’t the chances greater in a race where the horse is already injured?

Please, IEAH Stables and Richard Dutrow, do not run Big Brown in the Belmont Stakes. Bad things can happen to a horse in any race. Really bad things can happen to a hurt horse in race. God awful things can happen to a hurt horse that hasn’t been properly prepared to run in a race.

Again, nobody knows how bad the hoof is, but if the connections of Big Brown are willing to bypass a work because they feel that the horse’s hoof needs to “heal on its own”, then I’m not touching this guy in the Belmont.

Big Brown won’t be on any of my exacta or trifecta tickets. I don’t like playing with fire when the fire is so obviously hot and right in front of my face. That’s what Big Brown will be this coming Saturday unless the super-vet and Dutrow are throwing the wool over our eyes. Fire.

Fire that could burn a lot of online wagers.

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