Seven Reasons To Bet Against Big Brown
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.
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