Don't Trash Kent, On Bb's Race Here's Why.......
 

Hello Handicappers,
Well iv'e sat back a couple of days listening to the young pimple-faced fans who have watch horse-racing for a year and are now experts. you
guys and gals, trashed a rider who has won over 200 million in purse money and is in hall of fame. let's not be naive here, ieah has 50 MILLION!!!!! ON THE LINE with BB. Let me repeat, 50 MILLION !!! on the line with BB. They told Kent not to get this horse hurt if he had any doubt about his run, and
Dutrow has had no say if BB ran in Belmont or not!!! ieah had UPS corporate
people in big tent party and you know how that goes. they told Dutrow to
have BB in this race no matter what. When they talk to Dutrow Saturday you could see in his face tone of voice and body language he knew BB was not right. Kent in his pre-race interview on ABC did not have that bubbly high
pitch voice of excitment, he was reserved and you knew he knew BB wasn't
right. Hell the work-out rider knew this.
Now all the experts on ATR including Steve Byk who i admired
and respect have flip-flopped on this issue. i held on the phone with KC
yesterday put could not get thru to Steve. Steve nor steve Haskin, or John
perrotta said anything about BB might need to be scratch 14 days before race.
Now john said BB was taken out of his work-out routine. Steve
and others on Atr for 2 weeks said everything is a go for BB. now after BB
ran terrible due to no fault of his own, and has a DNF on his record, All these experts are saying BB didn't get his long gallops in and had only 1 meaniful work-out at 5 furlongs. Well hell if you knew this days before race none of them said a damm thing after, 5 million dollars was bet on BB?

Still need to tweak that program a bit. It's just about at the ****** level as is.

iv'e read some of your posts and your opinion means less than zero to me hoss!!

can we trade back for kyrim?

He's quite the confused individual.

a computer is trying to play you ?

are you his hoss? or is fat man?

Hope you're kidding. 'Hoss' is a common term down here in the South. :p

what gave that away?

Yeah, but the kiddie on the horsey in his avatar sure is cute!

Whatever, hoss. Wouldn't expect you yankees to understand. :D

he said fat man meant nothing to 'me hoss' so i thought he was using pirate speak and saying YOU (dahoss) had issues with fat mans posts. i'm SURE that's what he meant.

no doubt an unbiased opinion from you on that one! :cool:

Not so sure that's a :L:

LOL

:D

Sorry i was talking to fat man ,

It's funny that everybody is still giving you a hard time even though you were the only one on this board that called it right. You were the only one on here that said that they should scratch the horse. I think you were obviously right.

What was funny was that everybody was acting like what you were saying was completely outrageous when you suggested that they should scratch the horse. In reality, that opinion was not a controversial opinion at all. Most trainers that I talked to who saw the picture of the quarter crack said the exact same thing as you. I'm not saying that every trainer thought that they should scratch the horse but there were certainly plenty of trainers that would not have run that horse. I'm not going to criticize the conections for running. They made a judgement call. Hindsight is 20/20. Nobody could guarantee that the horse wouldn't win.

But the point is that your opinion was not crazy and there were plenty of trainers that had the same opinion as you.

I shouldn't have used the word "everybody". It was clearly not "everybody". But if my memory is correct, there were plenty of people giving him a hard time and acting like he was crazy when he suggested that the horse should be scratched.

I may have misinterpreted it. They may have just been teasing him because his post was so hard to read with all the capitals.

This is a rather bizarre assertion. I didn't know I had a say in the horse making the start. Big Brown worked out and looked good earlier in the week. The connections were comfortable with where he was and expected a good effort despite the hoof and lost training. I suggested Friday he didn't look nearly as good in his gallop as he had earlier in the week. What else exactly am I supposed to offer up?

The horse running or not running is not my, Steve Haskin's, John Perrotta's, or any other member of the media's responsibility. I reached out Monday for John Nerud to get the foremost opinion available on what may have occured. More expert than mine.. Rupert's.. or yours. And I'll take Nerud's interpretation as the cause of the poor performance. Big Brown's raw talent couldn't overcome the other issues, and that was what the connections and most that thought he would win Saturday were counting on and expecting.

Steve, For the record I was in no way endorsing sdjcom's criticism of you. I was just saying that sdjcom's suggetion that the horse should not have run was not a crazy suggestion. It was a reasonable point of view.

The criticism is fine. I'm not sure what the criticism is... It's not my responsibility or place to suggest on a radio show to Rick Dutrow or any other trainer that they may be running a less than perfectly fit horse in the third leg of the Triple Crown with immortality on the line. I think they already knew that...

And the suggestion that Dutrow and Desormeaux were "tense" Saturday is an interesting revelation... I wonder why they might have been tense? Was there anything riding on the day's outcome?

They were hoping the horse's talent would be enough. It wasn't.

Steve -- on a related note, having John Nerud on the show was fantastic. As you know, I truly enjoy sitting around with Angel Cordero or Jorge Velasquez, maybe the Chief, whoever might be around, and listening to their stories about the history of this game.

I remember watching races and then hearing someone like Georgie talk about what was going through his mind or what he was looking to do -- it's just incredible.

Could you imagine sitting with John Nerud and talking about training, breeding and just the sport in general?

Eric

i don't think it was sdj's suggestion that got him grief so much as it came from sdj.
as for his remark that the horse should have scratched, i believe it was a general consensus that had it been any race other than the belmont, and the tc on the line, the horse would have been scratched.

and in hindsight, he would have been better off, and the connections as well, had he scratched. much better for all of them if everyone was allowed to speculate 'what if' rather than know.

Even a blind squirel finds a nut once in awhile. Just because he guessed right doesnt mean his reasoning or logic was correct.

That is true.

At least no one with the connections has said Big Brown stepped on a tack in the barn before the race.....

Steve i was not implying anyone on ATR say anything or question a trainer.
i meant saying this to the listeners if a high profile horse is out of training routine for a big race. Atr and guest i understand was at Belmont all week. on the radio show it sounded to me everything was fine, with the patch job on hoof and so i took it for granted training to. now i did not bet BB and will say it's one's own responsibility to watch w/o reports so maybe i was out of line.
however everyone listen's for an advantage.

I understand.. And your suggestion about consideration for scratching was certainly a valid one. Understand that everyone was going on visual impression and what you heard from the Dutrow/McKinlay end. When the horse is out there early in the week looking solid going 5f in 1:00.3 and cooling out fine, there is no reason to question his status. He looked considerably worse for wear to me Friday when he jogged and I said so on the air... I also had again reminded people on the wagering front that the prudent play was to go against him in race, cover him in multis. That was the best I could do in terms of advising people to be wary of embracing him totally to the exclusion of any other possible result.

Remember that we were dealing with a horse that had dusted everything he faced in Florida, Kentucky and Maryland. The thought process is to conclude that even if he is less than 100% he should still beat the crew he was facing. Remember too that Baffert and Frankel expected Point Given and Empire Maker respectively to be simply better than the rest at less than 100% in their Kentucky Derbies. And most experts, fans and horseplayers agreed with their assertions.

I think the point here is nobody in their right mind expected the horse to lose nevermind finishing last, afterall the Trainer said neither bad trip, bad ride, bad hoof, bad post, subpar competition and even off training routine, were all irrevelant factors. To use 20/20 hindsight now is really after the fact.

Dutrow says he, Desormeaux are 'back on target'
 

"He also said that he will resume the horse's regular regiment of Winstrol injections on Sunday, despite claiming that Big Brown does not need steroids.
Dutrow has maintained that Big Brown was properly prepared for the race, dismissing speculation that the horse underperformed because he had been taken off steroids in May.

"He doesn't need any drugs; the Winstrol had nothing to do with it,"

Dutrow said. "I've never even had a vet look at this horse."

Dutrow like all the Experts on ATR have said the lack of Winstrol had nothing to do with his performance... Then why put him back on his cycle ?

Obviously something caused the horse not to run Saturday, and really that is the million dollar question. Short of not feeling like performing, which is hard to take at face value as horses are bred to run and love running, who knows... the only plausible reason I can rationalize here is he may have been protecting himself, the horse is spent and I agree if Winstrol is not a factor then why have him on it?

My questioning is WHY Change anything in the horses schedule unless you have to due to injury... If he has been getting a shot every month than WHY the hell would you elect to change that prior to the biggest race in his life. I'm puzzled by it, regardless of the NO IMPACT statements.

Ironically, I take Dutrow at face value here. From what I know about Winstrol, it's not a performance enhancer and, IMO, he just wanted to shut up everyone who was saying anything about steroids. He knew it wouldn't impact BB either way as far as racing goes. And yes, I truly feel that all the other circumstances caused him not to fire, not the elimination of Winstrol.

My statements were in my post 8 days before race. You can go back and read it if you so choose. My comments were not 20/20 hindsight