Maddux Sports Blog

The fallen idol that America loves to hate is back in action for the first time on Sunday since he forgot to show up for the Belmont to claim his Triple Crown. He runs in the Haskell at Monmouth. That along with the Travers at the end of August at Saratoga are the two most prestigious mid-summer races for three year olds - the bridge between the Triple Crown and the Breeders’ Cup. Big Brown faces a solid but undistinguished field of six other runners in the race. He will carry 122 pounds wile the rest will tote 118.

If he is sound and ready to go then Big Brown should win with relative ease. He started slowly in his training after the Belmont, but his recent efforts have been inspiring and steadily improving. We won’t know if he is right until he runs, but all indications are that he should be fine. He has been installed as the 1/2 favorite starting out of the fourth gate. His chief competitor, at 4/1, is Cool Coal Man. This is a horse that causes me to pull my hair out. I loved him in his win of the Fountain of Youth over a strong field, but then he burned my money twice in a row in lousy showings in the Blue Grass and Kentucky Derby. He regrouped with a win over this same Monmouth track in June, and will be ready to press Big Brown if he isn’t at his best. Atoned was second in Cool Coal Man’s last win, and he is the third choice here at 6/1. The Todd Pletcher trainee has long been highly touted, but never seems to be quite good enough. I’ll look elsewhere. Beyond that it’s hard to find a horse to like in the field - each has questions with the surface or the class.

It’s telling that, despite his well chronicled challenges, the big horses are actively avoiding Big Brown. The Jim Dandy was a very tough field last weekend, and three or four horses from that race could have been second choice here. Saturday’s West Virginia Derby doesn’t have nearly the cachet of the Haskell, yet it has a much tougher field, including Derby runners Recapturetheglory and Z Fortune. It seems as if the other trainers aren’t yet ready to count out th Derby and Preakness winner.

I am very hopeful that Big Brown has a big race, and not just because I have two very expensive Breeders’ Cup tickets purchased partly to see him in the flesh. I would be as confident about his chances as the odds suggest I should be if it weren’t for one thing - trainer Rick Dutrow. He showed on the Triple Crown trail that he is the cockiest human being on the planet. Now he is showing uncharacteristic humility. Dutrow has a horse called Sis City who was heavily favored to win the Kentucky Oaks in 2005. There were no good excuses for her flat fourth place finish. Despite training well, the horse never won another race. Dutrow keeps revisiting that experience in the media, and that spooks me a bit - is he seeing some of the same signs in Big Brown? I hope not, but I guess it helps to make this race more interesting. I’m not sure if I could handle that. I really liked that horse, and I lost money on her in the Oaks and a couple of times afterwards. I don’t know if I can handle the disappointment again.

Impressive win by Macho Again in the Jim Dandy. As I said yesterday, I really like this horse. His race was troubled, and he was in traffic trouble on the last turn, but he found a way to make a move for the lead, and then he held off an impressive late charge by Pyro. This is the first graded stakes win for Macho Again, but I don’t expect it to be the last. The horse looks physically more impressive and mentally more mature with every start. In a perfect world he would run in the Travers next month, again in September, and then he’d make his way to Santa Anita for the Breeders’ Cup. I’m not suggesting that he’s at the top of his class, but he is certainly among a handful of elite runners.

This weekend’s NASCAR race was one of the biggest jokes in recent sporting history, and it’s a scar on the sport. Goodyear delivered lousy tires that couldn’t hold up on the abrasive Indy track, so there had to be a caution every 10 laps or so so that the entire field could change their tires. That obviously robbed the drama and strategy out of the race, and it just turned it into a seven lap sprint at the end with a really long warm up. Jimmie Johnson won, and any victory counts, but this is not one to be proud of.

I am a big Manny Ramirez fan, and that comes from an equal mix of his incredible hitting talent and the bizarre spectacle that he is. I don’t have any love for the Red Sox, though, so the talk of a divorce between Man-Ram and the Sox makes me very happy. I don’t expect it to happen, but a move to Philly would really spice up the NL East race and make the Phillies a serious contender for post-season honors. Theo Epstein won’t pull the trigger on this one, though, because he doesn’t have to, and because Manny’s huge contract ensures that the Sox won’t be able to get equivalent value for him. Boston is in no position to downgrade their roster given the intense race that they are in. Manny might be a freak, but he’s a freak that can hit like almost no one else on the planet.

It is a great day of racing at Saratoga. I am not overstating my opinion or exaggerating even slightly when I say that Saratoga is unquestionably my favorite sporting facility in the world. If you have never been there you are missing out. Seriously.

All four major races today are part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge. That means that any horse that wins one of the races is guaranteed a spot in the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita in October if they so choose. Here’s a quick look on how I see the four races shake out.

The Diana - Wait a While returns to action. She was the champion three year old filly in 2006, but has struggled since. She has disappointed, but she loves this track and will be tough. Vacare had a terrible race on Belmont day that she will need to bounce back from. She’s good, but not good enough in my eye. Bit of Whimsy will get some attention and will make it interesting. The horse I like, though, is Dynaforce. She has raced in Europe and will therefore know how to handle the soft turf that she will face. The one problem with the pick is that her jockey, Kent Desormeaux is currently mired in a 1-for-45 slump. It’s got to end eventually, though, so I will shoot for reasonable value on Dynaforce at 7/2 or so, and feel reasonably confident about her chances of ending up in the top two. If she stays around 7/2 then I will probably be on her to place to start the day with a nice return of $5 or so for every $2.

Vanderbilt - This one features another interesting return to action. Thor’s Echo has been in the middle east since winning the Breeders’ Cup sprint in impressive fashion in 2006. He gets a break in this sprint - Bustin Stones was going to be a tough challenge, but he has been scratched. That will leave Abraaj as the likely favorite, but that’s a horse I struggle to trust. First Defense will deservedly get attention, and Black Seventeen will get way more attention than he deserves. I’m a huge sentimentalist when it comes to horse racing, so I will certainly be on Thor’s Echo at around 6/1 with the hope that some of that 2006 magic can be recaptured. If he gets pounded down well below that 6/1 morning line price, though, then I may pass the race.

Go For Wand - Ginger Punch is as close to a lock as you can get in this sport. Of course, so was Big Brown in the Belmont. Last year’s champion is by far the best in this field. Unfortunately, she will go off at terrible odds, so she won’t be of much use other than as a key in exotics. Look elsewhere if you like to gamble, because her presence will ensure that other prices will be more than competitive.

Whitney - This is the big one, and it is an intriguing field. There are 11 horses in the main event, and there are seven that I have some affection for. From the inside of the startinggate: The seven year old Commentator is a timeless warrior who won this race back in 2005 and is still in fine form. He’ll be the favorite, but he still needs to get his race to win here. Solar Flare starts second, and could be the second choice. He has won three of his last four races, but just the last two have come since he came to the States from South America - a win and a second. He was solid in finishing second in the Suburban last time out, but I don’t think he has enough to win here. Notional, in the third spot, is likely my pick if the price is right. Trainer Mark Hennig is smoking hot, and the horse is coming off a nice win. Notional was a very nice three year old early last year before encountering some problems, and I think that he is rediscovering and building on some of that class that we got a glimpse of. Cowtown Cat is a longshot at 20/1, but I am a sucker for any horse that was in the Derby as he was last year. I won’t bet on him, but I’ll be pulling for him. Grasshopper starts in the eight spot. He was as good as any horse around earlier in the year, but has gone through a bit of a downturn. Still, his 10/1 price is eye-opening, and I may have to take a piece of him if he stays around there. A.P. Arrow is another horse who has been at the top of the game but is a bit off that point now. He’s also at 10/1 in the morning line, though, and that’s enough to get a guy thinking. Finally, Student Council is a west coast runner who has come out to the dirt in the east and looked good. He won the Pimlico Special two starts ago, and is in very good dirt form for a horse that is at 6/1 to start. In the end, I will probably be on Notional, with Student Council and Grasshopper underneath. There are a lot of outcomes that could make me happy, though.

While we are at Saratoga we might as well take a quick look ahead to tomorrow and the Jim Dandy. This race for three year olds is the first big three year old race of the summer season, and it is a big prep for the Travers. I was lucky enough to be at Saratoga for this race two years ago when Bernardini absolutely humiliated the field to assert his incredible class. This year’s version lacks a horse like that, but it certainly doesn’t lack intrigue.

Jim Dandy - Da’ Tara will be back on track for the first time since his bizarre Belmont victory. I didn’t believe in him going into that race, and despite that setback my opinion of this horse hasn’t changed. I won’t be touching him. I also won’t be on two other horses we got to know on the Derby Trail - Anak Nakal and Tale of Ekati. I have liked both horses in the past and have little but frustration to show for it. I like MInt Lane, but not at the low price he is likely to go at, so I will take the risk of avoiding him for the sake of value. It comes down, then, to two horses - a favorite and a pleasing longer shot. The favorite is Pyro. I loved the horse in the spring, and the sucker in me wants him to rise up and become a dominant three year old contender again. I will be at the Breeders’ Cup in October, and I would love to see him there. The longer shot is Macho Again, a son of the great Macho Uno who doesn’t get nearly the respect he deserves. This is an impressive horse that is going to break through sooner or later. I will likely be on some combination of those two horses by race time.

I’ll say darn, but rest assured that that isn’t the word I have in mind.

I don’t know why horse racing hates me so much.

I am counting the seconds until post time for the Belmont. It’s not hard, because they are passing so slowly. I have been waiting for a Triple Crown for most of my life, and I believe that the wait could and should be coming to an end. I’ve felt that several times before, and I have had my heart broken by each impressive horse - Alysheba, Silver Charm, Real Quiet, Funny Cide, and Smarty Jones more than the others. Something seems different this year, though - Big Brown is more of a freak than past horses in this situation, and the field contains fewer landmines (I want to be clear that I am not nearly as negative about this crop of three year olds as most people, but I just don’t think that there is a horse of Big Brown’s class) than recent years.

I think Big Brown will win handily (like everyone else on the planet), and I think that he will be well below his 2/5 morning line by post time. That means that the race will not be a good source of profit unless something bizarre happens. I can’t pass on the race, though, so I am going to make two different bets. First, I will bet Big Brown to win (just two dollars, and I likely won’t cash the ticket if he wins - I’m a hopeless romantic when it comes to racing). For a shot at making at least a little profit I will look to the superfecta. I will obviously key Big Brown on top, and I am going to buy into the hype because of the need to create an affordable ticket and key Casino Drive in second. That means I can afford to have a bunch of horses under those two. I’m going to have Macho Again, Icabad Crane, Denis of Cork and Tale of Ekati in the third spot and I might add Ready’s Echo and Anak Nakal to the bottom to make it an even $20 ticket. It won’t pay much, but it will it will at least give me something to cheer for. Not that I will need it.

The interesting thing to watch is going to be how the race plays out. Outside of Big Brown, the only horse that seems to be interested in the lead is Da’ Tara. That horse doesn’t have anywhere near the quality to stay at the lead to the end, so Kent Desormeaux won’t be too worried about him because Big Brown can probably brush him aside whenever he wants to. On the other hand, Casino Drive is the first horse he has faced with a closing kick that can even remotely rival his own. On top of it all, Desormeaux has to deal with the inside post and will have to make sure that his horse doesn’t get trapped somewhere he wants to be. Desormeaux could go for the lead early, but he has the memory of doing so with Real Quiet and then running out of gas just before the finish line. He could settle back and wait until a better time to make a move. This race is more than long enough to reward patience, but Desormeaux showed in the backstretch of the Preakness that he will go to great lengths to avoid being boxed in. He could try to move outside as quickly as he can to stay out of trouble. With so many options it will be interesting to see what strategy is employed for Big Brown, and how aggressively the other jockeys are riding to beat him. Jerry Bailey took all sorts of criticism in 2004 when it looked like he was riding to beat Smarty Jones instead of to win the race himself.

I’ll warn you now - if Big Brown doesn’t win I’ll be pouting in this space for weeks.

It’s a long weekend up here in the Great White North, and I just got back into town, so I won’t take long here. I’ll get back to regular writing tomorrow, but today I am just trying to absorb what we witnessed yesterday at Pimlico. I love horse racing more than any other sport, and I have watched a whole lot of races in my time, but I have never seen a horse win as easily as Big Brown. He won by five and a half, but he could have won by 55 if he had been allowed to run. Absolutely incredible. It will be a long three weeks until the Belmont as I dream again and again of the very real possibility of a Triple Crown. Finally.

I’ll say this right up front - I think that Big Brown is going to win the Preakness handily and I am going to bet accordingly. Just to be contrary, though, here are seven reasons why you could choose not to bet on him if you were so inclined. As an aside, I can’t help but be haunted by the 2000 Preakness when I think of this race. Fusaichi Pegasus was a freak who was under-raced but had won the Derby impressively after a ton of hype. He was 3/10 in the Preakness against a field of largely uninspiring horses. Kent Desormeaux had that mount as well. Before the race was run everyone and their dog was looking ahead to the Belmont. He got caught at the wire by Red Bullet, a 6/1 shot who had tanked it in the Wood Memorial last time out. That was a bad year for Triple Crown watchers, and certainly not one I am anxious to relive:

1. Inexperience - The argument that turned people off of him in the Derby is still relevant here. He has only run four times, and he has never had to face adversity in any of those races. A lot can happen in a race full of youngsters, and we don’t know how he will handle it if it does.

2. The field - I don’t think that the field provides much of a challenge for him, but that lack of quality could be a problem. Several of these horses don’t belong here, so they could get themselves in trouble if the pace gets out of hand. As they fade they could create an obstacle for the favorite, and even a horse that good might not be able to get around it.

3. His health - After running in his first race he suffered two different foot injuries that kept him out of training for months. He seems to be healthy now, but he has never run back in just two weeks before, so we don’t know if he can hold up to the strain.

4. The price - There are 13 horses in this field. It doesn’t make any sense at all that one of them should be at 1/2. He’s far better than the rest, but that price is so low (and will likely go lower once the public gets a hold of it) that it can’t possibly accurately reflect the risk involved in putting your money on him.

5. Travel - The horse only arrived at Pimlico on Wednesday night. He’s the last horse in the field to show up. That means he won’t be particularly familiar with his surroundings, and he won’t have worked hard over the somewhat quirky Pimlico surface. Yet another thing we don’t know - how he will handle it all.

6. Conspiracy theory - This is admittedly a stretch, but so are most conspiracy theories. Kent Desormeaux rides Big Brown. He also rode Casino Drive, the super horse from Japan who is awaiting Big Brown in the Belmont, in his only North American appearance. If Desormeaux had a good feeling that this horse wasn’t good enough to beat that horse then he might not push as hard as he could here because a loss here would almost certainly keep Big Brown out of the Belmont. It would at least theoretically be easier to handle to lose here than in New York when you have the Triple Crown in your grasp. As an added bonus for Desormeaux, he could then have the mount on Casino Drive and would likely win the race anyway.

7. For sport - What’s the fun in backing a heavy favorite and being right? It would make for a way better story if a 30/1 shot pulls off the miracle and you can show off your winning ticket.

If you haven’t been paying much attention to the lead up to the second jewel in the Triple Crown, everything you have missed can be summed up like this - There is one very good horse, two that might be alright, and a lot that have no business being in a race of this caliber. In order of preference:

Big Brown - How good is this horse? - he is at 1/2 in the morning line in a 13 horse field. You don’t see that every day. More importantly, those odds seem to pretty much reflect his chances here. He has a decent post position (number 7 - though he won from the 20th hole in the Derby, so the post doesn’t really matter), and this race is totally and absolutely his to lose.If he is even remotely approaching good health then this should be a runaway.

Gayego - This horse captured some imaginations when he won the Arkansas Derby (the same prep race won by Curlin, Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex, Lawyer Ron and others), but he was dismal in the Derby. He ended up 17th and he didn’t look comfortable for even a second during the whole race. If you can pretend that last race never happened then he is intriguing at 8/1. That’s a big if, though. The biggest thing going for him is that he was entered here after his connections previously indicated he would go back to California to rest and regroup. That means he must be in pretty good form.

Behindatthebar - The plus side for this horse is that he is coming of a nice win over a decent field in the Lexington, and he seems to have some talent. The downside is that he is trained by Todd Pletcher. That’s a good thing for every race other than a Triple Crown one. The horse strikes me as good but not good enough. UPDATE: Forget all that - the horse was scratched Friday morning with a ‘foot problem’. I think that that is code for ‘he’s too slow’.

Everyone else - As the saying goes, this is a dog’s breakfast. The other ten horses in this field are all just taking a shot at a big check. There are some moderately talented horses, and I would like several of them a lot if a state-bred stakes race on a Saturday at some anonymous track somewhere, but it is hard to see how any of them have more than a fleeting chance of winning here unless something goes very wrong. All you need to know about the quality is that Kentucky Bear is the fourth choice in the morning line. He has only run three times in his career. He broke his maiden in January, then he was a completely uncompetitive seventh in the Fountain of Youth. He finished third in the Blue Grass, but Monba won that race and was dead last in the Derby. There is not a lot of reason to like this horse, yet the oddsmaker liked him better than anyone else (he is tied with Yankee Bravo). If I had to pick one horse out of this mess it would be Hey Byrn at 20/1, but you won’t see me rushing to the window to bet on him.

I could write a lot about that race, but I won’t. Instead, just two thoughts:

1. Wow. Big Brown . Not more more to say. Unbelievable. I will either make a lot of money on this horse or lose it over the next five weeks, because there is no way I am betting on anyone else. Incredible.
2. Any doubts that horse racing is a tough sport? The story of Eight Belles goes down in history as one of the all-time happy-sad classics. Nothing more to say at this point.

The Kentucky Derby is tomorrow, and I am of the firm and unwavering opinion that it is the greatest sporting event in the world. There is no event that is any harder to win, and no sport that involves more challenge, heartbreak, or excitement than the sport of kings. Don’t get me wrong - there are a lot of truly spectacular sporting events. I’d just trade them all for what will go down in Louisville tomorrow if I had to (thankfully, I don’t).

All that being said, I have a big problem this year - I don’t have a horse. Most years, by this point I have been firmly and avidly entrenched on a horse for weeks or months. Last year I was on Curlin since March. In 2006 I was on the Barbaro bandwagon before he entered the starting gate in the Florida Derby. 2005 was a bit of a disaster when Noble Causeway was 14th, but there was no way I was staying away from what was likely to be (and ultimately was) Gary Stevens’ last Derby mount. This year all I have is confusion and questions.

At heart I am a romantic. That’s why I prefer college sports to the pros, and that’s why I love horse racing so much. It is a sport that is tailor-made for dreamers. For that reason I am drawn to Big Brown. The horse is clearly a freak, and he has never been even remotely challenged. There is the potential that this horse is truly special and that we are about to see something amazing. Unfortunately, there is just so much going against him that I can’t buy into him at 3/1. He’s only had three career starts, and no horse has won in the modern era with less than five career races. He’s only won twice this year. He has just one stakes start. He missed several months of training with some pretty serious foot issues. He’s coming from way out in the far outside gate - number 20. That’s a lot to overcome. I sincerely hope he does, but I can’t bet that he will at that price.

With him off the board, the problem is that no horse jumps up to fill the top spot. I have liked Pyro a lot since his huge performance in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, but he had a disastrous outing last time out in the Bluegrass Stakes and ended up 10th. I can discount that somewhat because it was on a synthetic track, but I still feel uneasy when a horse looks that bad the last time we saw him. Again, he doesn’t present any value at this price. Colonel John is getting all sorts of support, and his Santa Anita Derby win was very visually impressive. Lots of problems again, though - he has never run on dirt, I am not entirely convinced that he beat a very impressive group in the Santa Anita, and it has been a decade since a California horse has come out ahead. To sound like a broken record - no value here.

That rules out the favorites, so I guess I should look for a longer shot. Easier said than done. I have a soft spot for fillies that take the step up, but Eight Belles has never faced the boys before. Tale of Ekati and everyone else coming from the Wood Memorial gets ruled out because the last furlong of that race was so slow that I could have won it on foot. Court Vision seems content to be not quite good enough. I’d like Z Fortune for a lot of reasons, but trainer Steve Asmussen has lowered expectations at every opportunity this week. Visionaire looks best when he isn’t facing top horses. Smooth Air has to bounce back from a fever last week. Monba has better synthetic form, and he comes off a win in the Bluegrass - a race that was such a mess that several Derby entrants are throwing it out completely. The same goes for Cowboy Cal, except he got beat by Monba. Denis of Cork is coming off a truly bizarre prep schedule, and he didn’t fire at all in the Illinois Derby. Gayego has a habit of getting into duels with lesser horses down the stretch, and he doesn’t always win them. I like something about almost all of those horses, but apparently not enough.

So, what am I going to do? The only logical thing to do in this situation, I guess - head to the track tomorrow, drink some beer, and buy tickets on a bunch of horses so that I can at least say I had a piece of the winner (though if I am being honest, a win by Big Brown would make me happier than anything). It doesn’t really matter because whichever horse wins the Derby will instantly become my favorite horse as he pursues the Triple Crown - I can jump on a bandwagon as fast as anyone.