Triple Crown for Big Brown?

The talent is surely there. The question is: How well will he respond to two more long races in a little more than a month? After all, the 3-year-old’s Kentucky Derby win was only his fourth career start.

Impressive as he has been, part of the reason Big Brown has seen the track as little as he has is the very real concern about his durability. He has already suffered two quarter cracks, and his pedigree – like that of many of his challengers – has come under fire for prizing speed over staying power. Here’s a great quote from Randy Moss (no, not that one) over at ESPN on the breeding problem I referred to in an earlier post:

Big Brown is the latest in a long line of horses bred for extreme talent with scarce attention paid to durability. The emphasis — especially for horses designed to be sold at public auction — apparently is to breed/purchase racehorses with genetic capabilities to win the Kentucky Derby even if soundness has to be sacrificed. After all, in today’s stallion market, even an unsound championship-caliber 3-year-old can be worth tens of millions of dollars — if their careers are managed judiciously with well-spaced races and use of all permitted medications, and, of course, with a healthy dose of sheer luck.

Therefore, the conundrum for equine capitalists on both sides of the fence has become: why breed or buy yearlings bred more for durability than brilliance, if their pedigrees suggest they may only be talented enough to reach the Grade 2 or Grade 3 level? Owning racehorses is an expensive proposition and a gamble in every sense of the word, so why approach it with a buying strategy that reduces the possibility of a life-changing grand-slam home run, such as Rick Porter hit last year with Hard Spun? In a sense, this philosophy comes into play in other sports as well. NFL teams clearly are more likely to draft a college player with all-world talent but a strong lack of character than a straight-laced overachiever who doesn’t stand as tall, run as fast or jump as high.

Interestingly enough, that article was written after the colt’s second race – March 5 of this year – a full two months before Big Brown’s Kentucky Derby win and the heartbreaking collapse of Eight Belles. The concern for his durability (and by extension those of all 20 Derby horses descended from Native Dancer) was real enough that Moss ended his story with this:

Clearly, Big Brown is a phenomenally talented colt, but he may have too much in common with Badge of Silver, another shooting star on the Derby radar screen several years back with colossal talent but whose legs were too fragile to get him to the promised land.

That – not PETA, crops, or steroids – is the real story in horse racing these days.

~ by Porky on May 6, 2008.