Zito delivers with Da’Tara as Big Brown fails

By VIVIAN GRANT

Da’Tara wins the Belmont Stakes

Congratulations to Hero for Horses and anti-horse slaughter advocate, Nick Zito, for winning the Belmont wire to wire with Da’Tara. This is not the first time Zito’s horse has been the spoiler in the race for the Triple Crown.

Jockey Alan Garcia is congratulated by trainer Nick Zito (L) after Da’Tara wins the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in Elmont New York on June 7, 2008.
(UPI Photo/John Angelillo)

In a related article, it states Zito would not answer whether or not he uses steroids on his horses. Shame on him if he does, and on all the ones who do. The horse racing industry in the U.S. has an obvious death wish. People will always love and remember the horses, and this is what the industry has forgotten.

Big Brown fails to deliver

It is reported everywhere by sports writers, broadcasters and racing pundits that the connections have no idea what went wrong with the horse.

Well, I saw the race, quiet unexpectedly, and there are several explanations, but here is the simplest and most likely:

Big Brown came out of the gate hard. Drawn from the number 1 position on the inside he experienced a lot of crowding as the other horses raced for the rail to get a good position. Several strides in Big Brown was bumped badly, knocked off his stride and had to be snatched up. Big Brown then had to navigate quite a bit of traffic to get the position he would hold for the rest of the race, on the outside third from the raile.

With his head high in the air, Big Brown pulled hard and jockey Kent Desmoreaux seemed never to be able to settle him into a comfortable stride.

Although it was not a fast run race, those extra exertions to me is where Big Brown lost the race.

Add the hot weather, longer distance and that he also may have not liked the ground, and Big Brown’s poor performance can be explained. Only because Big Brown was going for the Triple Crown and has an admitted doper for a trainer who ran Big Brown on a badly cracked hoof has it all been so highly scrutinized.

There is the factor so often overlooked. Big Brown is a living, breathing, thinking, feeling creature. What he was experiencing mentally on the day we may never know, but it does matter.

The blessing is that the jockey took care of the horse, and when he realized Big Brown had nothing left in the tank, pulled him up, thereby protecting the horse from injury, and possibly much worse.

Jockey Kent J. Desormeaux reins in Big Brown during the 140th running of the Belmont Stakes horse race at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, June 7, 2008.
Big Brown failed in his bid to become horse racing’s 12th Triple Crown winner when he finished in last place to the winner Da’ Tara.
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Big Brown finished last.

Sunday, the papers say, Big Brown was all alone except for the staff who handle and care for him.

No one knows what Big Brown’s fate is now. More racing perhaps, with a match up against Horse of the Year Curlin in the Breeder’s Cup, and then off to the breeding shed. Another big win would help plump up the price for Big Brown’s services at stud. The experts say his stallion fees began falling before he left the racecourse.