Effortless, And Rightly So

Big Brown's easy Preakness victory was certainly visually impressive; it seemed absolutely effortless, and Kent Desormeaux seemed to be spending more time on slowing him down than anything else. Clearly the horse enjoyed his win -- ears up, great demeanor; it's a shame he will likely only experience the thrill of running once more, given his stud deal with Three Chimneys. Dana pointed out that according to the contract, Big Brown's owners are calling the shots regarding his retirement -- they've already announced that he won't run at 4 (which I could almost - almost - excuse if he won the Travers and Breeders' Cup Classic) but I sincerely doubt we'll see him again after the Belmont. I'd be happy to have them prove me wrong. But back to his Preakness performance; while it was certainly effortless, that's as you might expect from a multiple G1 winner (even if those multiple G1s are simply his last two races) taking on such an overmatched field -- five horses in the field were (and are!) still eligible for non-winners of two races. Only Behindatthebar (who was scratched anyway), Gayego and Hey Byrn had ever won in graded stakes company. Quite a few seemed to have a relatively recent maiden special weight win as one of their more prominent victories. Big Brown's glide to victory was simple and easy -- and it had every right to be. The same should not be true of the Belmont. See you in New York in three weeks...