EXPLANATION, PLEASE
By Harry King/SPORTS COMMENTARY
LITTLE ROCK — The network tribute to the late Jim McKay said the sportscaster showed the country how to win graciously and lose gracefully.
Two men involved in horseracing, McKay’s favorite sport, must have turned off “The Wide World of Sports” once ski jumper Vinko Bogataj crashed.
Trainer Dick Dutrow Jr., who said Big Brown’s completion of the Triple Crown was a “foregone conclusion,” was a no-show on the Belmont backstretch the day after his colt finished last. The best co-owner Michael Iavarone could come up with was that the track became deep because of a shortage of water and that Big Brown might not have liked the going.
Track superintendent John Passero said the track was watered after each race and added, “I thought the track was perfect.”
Trying to explain Big Brown’s performance percolated through the weekend and spilled over into other sports. When there was no immediate volunteer with the first question for David Stern, the NBA commissioner offered that he did not know why Big Brown ran so poorly in the Belmont.
Some say it was bad karma emanating from Dutrow and others.
Trainer Nick Zito and owner Robert LaPenta of longshot winner Da’ Tara did not apologize like Zito and Marylou Whitney did after Birdstone stopped Smarty Jones’ try for the Triple Crown in 2004.
David Carroll, who trained Belmont runner-up Denis of Cork, said he felt bad for Big Brown, but was not sorry about the outcome.
“There is a right way of doing things and a wrong way,” he said. “You win with class. You lose with class.”
Jockey Kent Desormeaux, Dutrow and Iavarone eliminated all physical excuses and on-site veterinarian Larry Bramlage said he did not think the lack of steroids was a factor. Dutrow said he had not given Big Brown a dose of Winstrol — legal in the three states where the Triple Crown races are run — since April 15.
With those things off the board, here are a couple of possibilities:
D. Wayne Lukas, trainer of four Belmont winners, said the quarter crack in Big Brown’s left front hoof might have altered the colt’s training.
“I can’t believe missing three days made any difference at all to him,” Dutrow said.
Maybe, but a 1 1-2 mile race for a thoroughbred is much like a first-time marathon for a runner and missing some prep time just before the race does affect a human.
The irony here is that Dutrow was extremely critical of the way John Servis prepared Arkansas Derby winner Smarty Jones for the Belmont.
“I think maybe the way they trained that horse for that race going up to the Belmont had a lot to do with him getting beat,” Dutrow said last month during a conference call.
That day, he was wrong about the condition of the Philadelphia Park track where Smarty Jones worked prior to the Belmont, but correct that Desormeaux geared down Big Brown in the Preakness because he was saving something for the Belmont.
Right after the Belmont, Desormeaux said there were a “couple of times” where Big Brown “thought it was time to go,” but that he restrained him.
Maybe the colt was confused by the time he got the go from Desormeaux, who might have been riding with 1998 in mind. That year, some thought he asked too much too soon of Real Quiet, who was nipped at the wire by Victory Gallop.
Blaming Dutrow or Desormeaux makes as much sense as anything else when you consider that Da’ Tara’s Beyer speed figure of 99 was the lowest for a Belmont winner since the numbers became available in 1990 and that Big Brown did 100 under wraps in the Preakness.
Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.