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Sunday, May. 04, 2008

Big win; sad place

Favorite's victory is third Derby for jockey

Hard toward the finish, with giant strides propelling the plain but powerful Big Brown to victory in the Kentucky Derby by 43/4 lengths, the moment should have belonged entirely to the winner and his jockey, Kent Desormeaux, who was capturing the race for the third time.

But now their names will be linked always to the filly, Eight Belles, who was runner-up to Big Brown, then lost her life after collapsing with two broken ankles while slowing down once the race had ended.

Eight Belles was euthanized on the track near the seven-eighths pole, on the far side of the turn near the start of the backstretch where she fell with her rider, Gabriel Saez.

The filly suffered compound fractures, according to Dr. Larry Bramlage, on-call veterinarian for the American Association of Equine Practitioners.

"There was absolutely nothing you could do," Bramlage said.

Saez said that after the wire, after he stood up in the irons as jockeys do when they begin to ask their horse to slow down beyond the finish, "she started galloping funny and I tried to pull her up, but she went down."

As this 134th Kentucky Derby went into the books a story of triumph and tragedy run before the second-largest Derby crowd ever -- 157,770 -- Desormeaux said he was "deeply sympathetic" with the filly's owner, Rick Porter, and trainer, Larry Jones.

It could not have been lost on anyone at Churchill Downs that of the 19 others in this Derby who tried to outrun, outgame and outdo the very fast Big Brown, the only one close to him at the finish was the filly.

Third-placed Denis of Cork was 31/2 lengths behind the filly; fourth-placed Tale of Ekati was 23/4 lengths behind Denis of Cork; it was three-fourths of a length back to Recapturetheglory in fifth.

Big Brown accomplished his winning race in 2:01.82. As the 2-1 favorite, he returned mutuels of $6.80, $5 and $4.80. He is owned by IEAH Stables and Paul P. Pompa Jr., and he was named for Pompa's business connections with UPS.

"Big Brown showed up," declared his trainer, Rick Dutrow Jr., with a hint of I-told-you-so in his voice after the race.

From the time of Big Brown's arrival at Churchill Downs on Tuesday, Dutrow had been crowing pridefully about the fast son of Boundary and how nothing in this race could beat him.

His confidence was so great that he and the owners chose post position No. 20, the far outside, when they had four other choices with the 16th pick in the selection process.

From that difficult No. 20 post that had seen only one winner in Derby history (Clyde Van Dusen, 1929), Big Brown settled about his business when the field broke, cruising across the track to gain fourth in the first quarter-mile.

Bob Black Jack led the way and would lead the field through the first three-quarters of a mile. Cowboy Cal stalked the leader and Recapturetheglory raced in third.

For Big Brown, the trip was uneventful and beautifully executed. Desormeaux said Big Brown just slid over into fourth position going past the stands for the first time, comfortably in cruising speed, never having to extend himself in order to gain position.

Two horses passed him, leaving Big Brown in sixth position going down the backstretch. Trainer Dutrow said he got a bit nervous watching this event unfold. Desormeaux said he didn't even know how much horse he had in the tank, down the backstretch, because Big Brown was just cruising on his own, "just galloping, floppy-eared."

"That's how we were going and he added power to the stride when I needed it," Desormeaux said, "and when I needed him, I showed him the stick, and whoosh, he put me in a new position and I pulled him back and made him wait in his position."

Desormeaux said he made two key moves: the first going into the far turn, then another near the three-sixteenths pole. Unlike the average horse who usually has only one big move to give in a race, Big Brown leaped forward when Desormeaux asked, settled back into a cruise around the middle part of the far turn, then throttled forward when the jockey asked again.