Big Brown the real deal?

Question

is Big Brown that good. im kind of torn on it. i mean we know he's the best three year old this year by far. ok. his derby win was pretty impressive, but in the stretch he did pull away but he didnt exactly blow me away with the stretch run. i wonder what the last quarter was. but he did run four wide pretty much the entire race. im 29 so ive spent my whole life rooting for a triple crown winner. this might be the year but is it more because a lack of competition or because big brown is awesome. is he better than smarty jones was or barbaro. i dont know. what your opinion ?

Answer 1

Hope you get your wish.  I saw Secretariat and Seattle Slew win; great memories of two awesome horses.  I think Brown is the real deal running wide like that the whole race and still having the kick at the end.  Hard to say how he will handle a shorter track with tighter turns at Preakness, but he should handle Belmont OK if he isn't worn out by then.

Postscript - the Affirmed / Alydar duels were also classic. Alydar was a real hard luck story.  I was an Alydar fan and he kept coming in second.  Years later he died very mysteriously; some think he was killed for financial gain.

Answer 2

He is a good horse in a very down year for three year olds.  He is not better than Curlin, Street Sense, Barbaro, POint Given or other top three year olds from recent years.  He may well win the triple crown because his competition this year is weak.

Answer 3

big brown is a solid horse..... he has alot to prove @ pimlico.

don't count out horses like behindthe bar, dennis of cork, and z fortune. big brown will have alot of work  in maryland and  new york,  and the arrogance of his trainer will only hurt his public image.

it will be 31 years before the belmont annoints a triple crown.

Answer 4

Barbaro was the best

Answer 5

I don't know.  I've been saying for the past month that we have a weak crop of 3 year olds.  No one is consistently good.  I mean Pyro looked great in his first 2 starts this year and then looked pretty bad since then.  Adriano is great... on grass.  Denis of Cork was undefeated and did well in the Derby, but that Illinois Derby race was bad.  None of our horses last year threw in these clunkers.  Curlin was in the money in every race.  Street Sense was 1st or 2nd in all of his 3 year old races until the Breeders Cup.  Hard Spun was always right up there.  Any Given Saturday's worst race was the Derby, but it was only a 6th if I remember correctly.  They were a group of really evenly matched horses.  This year, you never know what's going to happen.

I was very against Big Brown in the Derby.  I thought he just had way too much to overcome.  No horse since Regret had won the Derby off of 3 starts.  And Big Brown beat no one before he ran the derby... it was maidens and allowance horses and even the FL Derby field was weak.  And no horse had ever won the Derby out of the 20 hole of the starting gate.  And he had a perfect trip in every race before the Derby and his 20 post guaranteed him a wide trip.  Overcoming all of that stuff to win the Derby is of course impressive.

But overcoming all that history depends on who you're doing it against.  The reason that a horse needs experience for the Derby is because there's 20 really good horses in the race and you're going to find trouble... you're either going to be wide or in a lot of traffic.  An experienced horse can handle it... an inexperienced horse usually cannot.  Big Brown would have had a better final time but for his 4 wide trip, that's true... but that's why the 20 post is so hard... usually there's some really great horses breaking from the inside and they get a better trip and finish before the horses with the wide trip can manage to make the lead.  But no one was good enough this year to do well from the inside posts... except Eight Belles of course.

I think if Big Brown was running in a different year, he wouldn't have won the Derby.  The stretch run was not spectacular... it wasn't a wide margin, it wasn't a very fast time.  He got the job done and he's clearly the best of the year, but look at the Derby runs recently... Funny Cide, War Emblem, Monarchos, Fusaichi Pegasus, Barbaro... they all would have beat Big Brown.  Smarty Jones ran his derby in the sludge so his final time wasn't very good at all, but he was visually impressive.

Of course, all of those horses had a lot more experience before running the Derby.  And remember how Curlin developed over last year into the superstar that he is today?  I think Big Brown will develop into a horse worthy of the Crown, but I think he got really lucky this year to win the Derby.  Any other year, I think he'd end up like Point Given and Afleet Alex... he'd end up being a really excellent horse, but just not lucky enough to win the Derby.  Still, with Tomcito and Casino Drive aiming for the Belmont, I can see Big Brown going the way of Smarty Jones, Silver Charm, and Real Quiet.

Answer 6

hmm... so far (as much as i LOVE him) he does not prove to be better then Smarty Jones or Barbaro. but we will just have to wait for the Preakness!

as for the Triple Crown, i think that if he does win it this year, it will be because of both reasons: he is and outstanding three year old, and there are no other good horses out there this year.

i sure will be rootin for him in the Preakness =)

Answer 7

Nobody knows yet but we'll find out in a few weeks.  It's good that Big Brown didn't open up too much in the stretch because you want something left in the gas tank for the other two races.

Back when Seattle Slew won the Triple, alot of people said it was because it was just a lousy crop of 3-year-olds that year.  But it was still awesome to watch.  And he proved them all wrong the next year when he beat Affirmed in the Marlboro Cup.  Affirmed went off as the favorite but Slew beat him by 3 lengths and barely missed tying Secretariat's record for that race.

Answer 8

Any other year I would not give him a chance. There are usually just too many decent to good horses to let a horse get away with this. I'd say he has a fairly good chance here (relatively of course; no horse has a good chance of winning the triple crown unless they're in the ranks of Secretariat, S-Bid [he should have!!!], Citation, etc.), because he's a typical best-of-the-crop kind of three year old, but there is no competition. No horse coming out of the Derby got within 8 lengths of him (though one should have - come out, that is). The Preakness field does not look all too difficult: a lot of the horses that have the potential to apply are more unproven that Big Brown is. Like most triple crown bids, I think this will come down to the wire at Belmont, and it's going to be a tough one. All his major competition will be fresh (some coming off the Derby, some with ~4 week layoffs like Tomcito), while he'll have run in the Preakness just 2 weeks after the Derby and just 3 weeks before the Belmont. So, I'm going to base this off of several things - if Tomcito does anything impressive in the Peter Pan, then it's probable he'll give Big Brown a big challenge. If the Derby horses train well, then they will also present a very large threat. Finally, we also need to see how well Big Brown runs in the Preakness - if he puts in an even more shining effort, then it could be a very good sign. Also, I do think that the Derby victory is more impressive than it looks - none of the horses in the past ~5 years that won the Derby have done it with very little experience, racing four wide the whole trip, running an entirely different race than what they usually do (Big Brown had previously raced on or within 3/4 of a length of the lead), or against strong headwinds. Also, I do contest that a five length winning margin is large for the Derby - Barbaro's six length win was the largest in decades.

One thing that I think that we should probably throw out is the distance - it's not whether he can get it, it's whether the other horses can get it better.

Don't be too quick to assume, though, that he'll win it - he's certainly no odds-on favorite (though if he wins the Preakness he'll probably be one in the Belmont), and the triple crown is pretty much the hardest thing in racing - only one horse every year even has a chance to get it (the Derby winner).

I'd give him an above average chance, but that's still very, very low.

Also: He could be better than Barbaro or Smarty Jones, but as of now, I'd say he isn't.

Answer 9

He just might be.  I haven't seen a Triple Crown winner since I was a little kid, so it would be nice if there is another one, soon.