JC / Railbird - Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

ESPN commentator Pat Forde gleefully kicks a down Dutrow:

How now does it feel to be the freshly humbled fool of thoroughbred racing, after your waltz to the Triple Crown turned into a disaster, a last-place finish, a Brownout? How now do you justify all the obnoxious bragging about your horse, Big Brown? How now do you possibly answer for having flagrantly disrespected the difficulty of the task before you?

You remember, babe: Winning the Belmont and the first Triple Crown in 30 years was a “foregone conclusion.” You dismissed the field by saying, “These horses just cannot run with Big Brown.” You envisioned winning this race “by daylight, easily. I just don’t see no dogfight in this race.”

It might not have been a dogfight. But there was one dog in the race: the Brown Bomber. This was the worst performance by a Brown since W. told Mike he was doing a heck of a job handling Katrina.

Oh, that’s low, but I won’t pretend I didn’t enjoy reading.
And Steven Crist points out something I’d missed:

Two other races came to mind after the Belmont, ones involving previous skirmishes between the winning and losing connections. In the 2005 Woodward, Rick Dutrow ran two overmatched sprinters at Zito’s Commentator to soften him up for Saint Liam. In the Wood Memorial two months ago, IEAH entered the rabbit Inner Light to wear down War Pass early for the benefit of their Court Vision. Both times it “worked” insofar as compromising Zito’s chances. Zito never complained publicly about either incident, and I’m not saying he entered D’Tara and Anak Nakal in retribution, or instructed their riders to surround Big Brown on the first turn, but there was at least a pinch of karma involved in the way it all worked out.

Sometimes, the universe rights itself …
Faultless Big Brown is back at the Big A, and apparently in fine health, leaving his people befuddled about what happened on Saturday. Barring any late-breaking veterinary finds, there’ll never be a good explanation, although I subscribe to the theory that he wasn’t fit, having lost four days training and posting only one work before the Belmont (and that, not as good as it looked). Blame has been heaped on “lazy” Kent Desormeaux elsewhere. Since I’ve never even been on a horse, much less hurtled along at high speed in a tight pack on one, I hate to second guess jockeys in these situations, but did find his words about pulling up Big Brown because he wasn’t “going to be fifth” a bit disturbing. What bothers me more, though, is the lack of transparency and accountability — if the New York stewards talked to Desormeaux afterwards, examined the ride or the results in any detail, or contemplated any action, we’ll never know, since that sort of information isn’t published anywhere. So, it’s all speculation, as is anything on the topic of steroids — it’s a guess whether being off Winstrol affected Big Brown, or if being on steroids helped Da’ Tara, especially since trainer Nick Zito declined to say whether the Belmont winner or Anak Nakal were injected in the days before the race. It’s a safe bet both were, but much like any inquiry by the stewards into Desormeaux’s decision to pull up, there’s no information available, no data kept, no public right to know.

Posted by JC in Triple Crown on 06/09/2008 @ 6:10 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter