JC / Railbird - Final Prep

Final Prep

Big Brown breezed three furlongs in :38.66 over the Aqueduct turf course this morning in a final prep for the Haskell on Sunday. Asked why the surface change, trainer Rick Dutrow told DRF, “just felt like doing it; no reasoning to it.” Michael Iavarone gave Blood-Horse more:

“The dogs were way out off the rail, and it was just what we wanted; no gallop-out. It was just a lung opener. Rick decided to work on the turf just to protect his feet. God forbid if anything went wrong, like if he stepped on a rock or something like that. Rick said he had a nightmare with Rising Moon, and he didn’t want to have anything like that happen again.”

Rising Moon was vanned off following the Whitney last week with an injury that turned out to be a bruise in his left front foot, and he’s not the only horse Dutrow is having bad dreams about in the run-up to the Haskell:

“When we had Sis City and ran a sub-par race in the Oaks, she never ran another step again, even though she trained great,” Dutrow said. “I pointed her toward big races and she never showed up in any of them again. When something like that happens where horses just doesn’t run their race, and you don’t know why, then you’re concerned that it might happen again.”

What a change. Big Brown is training sharply and 1-2 on the Haskell morning line, but there are no hints of the “unbridled audacity” the trainer displayed through the Triple Crown season. The tension around the barn and the pressure Dutrow must feel to get a win on Sunday after the Belmont debacle has to be enormous. I don’t envy him.

Posted by JC in Horses on 08/01/2008 @ 4:00 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter