Big Brown and champagne bubbles

Big Brown is better on turf, according to his trainer, Richard Dutrow, and the Derby winner may have to be better Saturday if he’s to win the $500,000 Monmouth Stakes in New Jersey. When he returns to the grass, Big Brown will face the toughest field he has seen since at least the Kentucky Derby and perhaps ever.

In other words, he’ll become what every smart horseplayer looks for: a vulnerable favorite to bet against.

Not only will Big Brown take on older horses and not only will he race on turf for the first time in more than a year, but Saturday’s race won’t even be important for him, except as preparation for next month’s Breeders’ Cup Classic. For Big Brown, preparation, more than winning, is the goal Saturday.

Dutrow made that clear during today’s teleconference. He said Big Brown, who had just worked an easy five furlongs on the turf at Aqueduct, would be running Saturday even if the purse were just $10,000, because what’s important is the timing. Saturday’s race gives Big Brown six weeks to the Breeders’ Cup Classic, run Oct. 25 at Santa Anita.

“I thought he needed that kind of timing,” Dutrow said. The trainer explained that he likes “plenty of time when . . . headed to a big race.” Although he’ll get plenty time, he may not have an easy time.

Big Brown, of course, looked sensational when he won his debut on the turf last year at Saratoga by more than 11 lengths. And every rider who has guided the colt through morning workouts on the turf, Dutrow said, has expressed the opinion that Big Brown is simply better on grass than dirt.

“He goes better on the grass; he’s always breezed better on the grass,” said Dutrow, who indeed has an expert eye to make such judgments. And given Big Brown’s history of foot problems, racing him on the turf would seem quite sensible, even wise, as preparation for the Breeders’ Cup. That’s not the point.

And it’s worth a moment’s pause, I suppose, to contemplate the implications, albeit with some regret. If Big Brown, as Dutrow and others have suggested, is so much better on grass, then just how good a turf horse might he be? Well, we’ll never know, for he’ll be retired at the end of the season. But that’s not the point either, at least not for the moment.

Some exceptional horses are expected to line up Saturday against Big Brown. Dutrow, quite predictably, said he doesn’t care who the competition might be, but while Big Brown creates the excitement, it’s the others in the field that could create the intrigue. Kiss The Kid is a stakes winner of $379,767, and his trainer, Amy Tarrant, is a grandmother who says if “you pass up a chance, you can never get it back.”  Proudinsky is a graded stakes winner of $557,814; Shakis, a multiple graded stakes winner of $685,362; and Red Rocks a Breeders’ Cup Turf winner of $2.8 million. They’re all proven stakes horses on the turf, and collectively they’re the reason this race could be such a tough challenge for Big Brown.

Red Rocks, it’s true, never has won a race at a distance less than 1 1/4 miles. But he just defeated Curlin in the Man o’ War. Red Rocks will be formidable even at Saturday’s nine furlongs. Red Rocks, you probably remember, finished third in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf on a “soft” course, and there’s a 40-percent chance of rain Saturday in New Jersey.

And so the point is this: Saturday’s Monmouth Stakes promises to be an excitingly beautiful race of intrigue, possibility and maybe even opportunity. For the horseplayer, it could be the bubbles in the champagne.

Comments

[Vic in Chicago]

So if Red Rocks beats Curlin and Big Brown in the same year, does that make him Horse of the Year?

[Gary West]

Vic,

It's possible, but I don't think we'll see it happen. The last Horse of the Year who raced exclusively on turf was Kotashaan, in 1993. Now, that year was much like this one in that the 3-year-old crop was mediocre. But in 1993, the older horses were rather weak, too. Remember who won the Breeders' Cup Classic? Arcangues. He beat Bertrando.

Yes, a European could win this year's Classic, tossing everything into confusion, just as Arcangues turned over the banquet table 15 years ago. But Curlin is no Bertrando. And if Curlin wins the Jockey Club Gold Cup, he may put the golden Eclipse in his trophy cabinet.

By the way, Vic, Chicago is one of my favorite cities.

[rd]

If you can't join them, beat them. Big Brown off the board, then retired before the Classic. Curlin 1-9 for HOY.