Big Brown not as disappointing as his team

I'm not a fan of horse racing. Let's just get that out of the way to start. I actually think it's pretty strange that we care if one random horse can run faster than other random horses. Does the horse itself really care either way? Probably not. But all of the hype surrounding the final leg of the Triple Crown, and the fact that the Belmont Stakes is run here in New York, led me to watch today's race.

For those of you who are not versed in horse racing, a quick primer. There are 3 major races every year -- the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. A horse that wins all three races in one year is considered a Triple Crown winner. The last time a horse has pulled off the feat? 30 years ago in 1978 with Affirmed. So any time a horse wins the first two races, expectations are high coming into the third and final race.

This year, a horse named Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness without much trouble, and thus was a huge favorite to win the Belmont Stakes today. How huge? He was a 1-4 favorite, meaning that if you put up $100, you'd only stand to win $25 if Big Brown won.

Well, guess what happened? Big Brown lost. And not only did he lose, but he lost badly. He finished dead last. Over 120,000 people came out to watch this race, with about $6 million dollars alone being bet just on Big Brown to win. Needless to say, a huge disappointment.

In ABC's coverage, story after story was created to add drama to the event. However, rather than making me like the Big Brown contingent, I ended up wanting to root against them. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the horse himself. He seems like a nice enough equine. No, my dislike is for all of the people surrounding Big Brown.

For instance:

• Jockey, Kent Desormeaux, had a story about his son, Jacob, who was born with a rare condition called Usher Syndrome. This disease leaves sufferers with hearing loss and vision loss. The sad tale was supposed to be hopeful because if Desormeaux's son loses his vision he'd always have the visual of Big Brown winning the Triple Crown to get him through the tough times. I did feel bad for his son, but the story was done so poorly it evoked little emotion and just seemed like it was exploiting Jacob's disease to make the otherwise cantankerous jockey look more sentimental. At the end of the story, they showed Kent watching, likely to get a teary-eyed visual, but he really didn't look all that emotional about it. When asked about the story, Kent made odd comments, something along the lines of God giving his son this disease so that the spotlight can shine on their family in times like this. And when asked if he would be thinking of Jacob as he rides, he said he definitely would not -- once his legs were over the horse, nothing else matters but the race. I'm sure he didn't mean these words to come out so callously, but it didn't help me feel good about Big Brown's jockey


• It was clearly stated that Big Brown was given steroids by his trainer regularly as part of his training program. This means that Big Brown was juiced for the first two races which he won going away. While it's not exactly illegal in horse racing to use steroids (for what reason I don't know), not all horses use it, so the ones that do draw a suspicious eye. In order to deflect any criticism, trainer Rick Dutrow decided not to inject Big Brown leading into the Belmont Stakes. Were steroids the reason Big Brown was so good in the first two races and so terrible in the third? Hmmm...


• Speaking of trainer Rick Dutrow, they showed a story about his personal life, where he talked about how he was a hard living guy who loved gambling, expensive women, and drugs. It was set up as a heart-warming tale of how was able to dig himself out of his excesses and train a Triple Crown contender. However it came off really strangely. Dutrow detailed how the mother of his child, a former beauty queen in Jamaica who had a terrible crack habit, was murdered by a crack dealer. Dutrow seemed to have little to no emotion about the event. Even worse, they talked about how he then took his daughter, Molly, to live in a horse barn up through age 3 because they couldn't afford any other place to live. Then at age 3, he sent Molly away to live with her grandmother because he couldn't take care of her. Classy statement of the day? Dutrow laughs and says, look I still live a hard life, do you really think I can take care of Molly? I can barely take care of myself! And then oddly the story closes with a note that Molly is now living with him "for better or worse" (yes, the voiceover actually said that). Heartwarming! Dutrow closes the story with a brash guarantee that Big Brown would win. Oops.

All in all, the day was highly anti-climatic, and ABC's coverage was pretty horrid. Perhaps I'll watch another race one day when another Triple Crown hopeful comes to light, but I'll definitely steer clear of the pre-race schlock that comes along with it.