Dutrow shooting off his mouth?

Question

Thoroughbred Times.com has quoted Rick Dutrow as saying; "Something has to not be right for him to be pulled up in a race, so I have to try to figure out what it is. I'm sure it's not the horse's fault. So there's nothing to be down on with him."

Saying "I'm sure it's not the horse's fault" seems to pretty much narrow the list of possible causes for Big Brown's failure down to the jockey. Is that what Dutrow is saying?

Answer 1

Yep, that's exactly what he's saying.  Here's a little more on the subject: http://www.drf.com/news/article/95324.ht...

Dutrow thinks he did everything with the horse perfectly and the horse went into the race a winner, but Kent lost it for him.  He hates what Kent did with the horse during the first quarter mile.  He says that Kent was supposed to go straight to the lead and he didn't.  I don't know what Dutrow expects... Big Brown didn't break as well as Da Tara.  Kent couldn't help that another horse broke better.  What was he supposed to do with that?  He got stuck behind horses.  He had to go wide... that was his only choice.  Dutrow is mad that Kent took the horse back and forth at the start of the race... he was bouncing in and out before he finally got outside Tale of Ekati.  But what was he supposed to do?  There were horses in front of him and Big Brown was throwing a tantrum about it.  He had to go wide.  Then I guess maybe Dutrow expected Kent to push to the lead on the outside, but with fractions of 23 and change for the opening quarter in the 12 furlong race, pushing his horse to the lead would have been stupid.  Dutrow says that Kent spent the first half of the race fighting the horse... that's just rhetoric from a guy who doesn't understand pace.  Maybe Kent was a little too cautious with the pace... Kent didn't want to ask too soon and end up with another Real Quiet experience.  However, I can't criticize a guy who wanted his horse to go fractions in 23 and change in a 12 furlong race.

Kent couldn't control the way all the horses broke from the gate.  Dutrow is being stupid and shooting off his mouth again.  He can't just admit that maybe his horse just wasn't as good that day or that maybe his horse isn't bred for the distance or that maybe his horse couldn't go an aggregate of 31.5 furlongs in 5 weeks or that maybe his horse needed his precious steroids or that maybe (here's a shocker) Dutrow could have done something different with the horse to make him more ready for the race!  

He's very quick to put the blame on someone else... he did it after the Preakness when he criticized Edgar Prado's ride on Riley Tucker and he's doing it to his own jockey now.  I've never heard the guy admit that he, himself, did anything wrong or could have done anything better.  He's quick to shoot off his mouth about how great he is and about how bad everyone else is.  He never says anything about his horses having weaknesses or about other horses being decent enough to challenge him.  The man acts like he's perfect and while it makes for sensationalistic news headlines, it doesn't make him particularly endeering to the public.  No one is perfect and people don't like perfect people... we don't like people who pretend to be perfect because we know that there's some imperfection in everyone.  We are much more fond of people who admit their imperfections.  That's why so many people hate Dutrow.

Answer 2

Yesterday Big Brown's owner tried to blame it on the track not being watered but the Belmont track superintendent said the track was watered the same as always.  Apparently Belmont had a water outage but they had water trucks to water the track.

With that excuse shot down I wouldn't be surprised if they blame the jockey next.

Answer 3

You know, at first, I inferred that he meant the circumstances during the race rather than the horse's performance itself.  

If I fine tune my thinking a bit more, I do arrive at the same conclusion you do, but then the question, to me, becomes twofold:  Firstly, should KD have let BB run his own race, instead of frustrating him by manipulating him early on?  So many times I have read it said that he is such an intelligent horse, he knows what to do, you just have to let him do it. His own connections said that repeatedly.  Secondly, in the last half of the race, when we were all waiting anxiously for that burst of power,  I honestly did not observe that much urging on from KD; in fact, if the announcers hadn't said that he was "asking him,"  I don't think I would have perceived it visually.  If it occurred, there was not that much observable physical vigor to it as there usually is.  And BB made it very obvious in the stretch that he was not happy about being eased up.....

Yes, I do believe that is what RD is inferring.......and you'll notice he says, "...for him to be pulled up..." and not "....for him to have/need to be pulled up....."  That in itself is a pretty clear indictment.

Someone else here tonight asked if KD is a hero or a criminal.  Let us just say that if he is either one, RD is ostensibly unaware of it.