Promising day at Belmont ends on rough note for Dutrow, Big Brown

Jockey Kent Desormeaux, who failed in a Triple Crown bid aboard Real Quiet in 1998, said he had 'no horse' on the track. Heinz Kluetmeier/SI Luke Winn's Mailbag Have questions or feedback? E-mail Luke Winn. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Luke Winn on Twitter

ELMONT, N.Y. -- He leaned over a worn-down wooden railing outside Barn 11, supporting himself on his forearms, staring with deep despair into the Belmont Stakes' post-race holding stables. His horse, Big Brown, was inside, under inspection; the bay's completion of the Triple Crown here was supposed to be a mere formality, and yet he had pulled up and finished last, not conditioned well enough to make the mile and a half after missing three days of training with a quarter-crack in his front left hoof. And so Rick Dutrow Jr., the trainer who nearly an hour earlier had "guaranteed" victory, remained on the railing, immobile, his suit-jacket off, sweat soaking through all put the final few inches of his blue dress shirt above the belt. Dutrow had lost a lot of liquid. He had also lost the biggest race of his life, the chance to make history. He stayed silent for almost 30 minutes, ignoring the reporters peering at him from eight feet away through a chain-link fence.

When Dutrow did speak, finally, the braggadocio that had earned him a rep as the Muhammad Ali of horse-trainers -- the claims that Big Brown would be talked about "in the same breath as Secretariat, Affirmed, all those good ones" -- was gone, replaced by the solemn admission that, "when they turned for home, I knew something wasn't right." Michael Iavarone, head of IEAH, the outfit that owns Big Brown, saw it even sooner, saying "I knew we were in trouble at the three-eighths pole." Jockey Kent Desormeaux would offer the explanation, simply, that Big Brown "was empty. He didn't have anything left."

The crowd at Belmont Park, 94,476 who had braved 95-degree heat to see Big Brown, deflated as quickly as their horse did, with roars turning to groans and then quieter grumbles and then departures, en masse. Trainer Nick Zito's Da' Tara -- running at 39-to-1 odds -- had pulled off an epic upset, but the fans wearing UPS-toned Big Brown tees, the ones holding the "Special Delivery: Triple Crown" signs outside, and the many women who had forsaken sun-dresses in summer colors for brown formalwear, had come to witness an entirely different outcome.

The scene in the race's immediate aftermath was tense, and at times, ugly. Big Brown was the last to cross the finish line, but the first to be pulled through the tunnel underneath the grandstand. A few angry fans outside the paddock unfairly took aim at exercise rider Michelle Nevin and Big Brown's groom while they were leading the horse to the barn; one man yelled, "You broke the horse! You f---ing ran an unsafe horse!"

Dutrow, who was being tailed by a hungry pack of reporters through the paddock, turned briefly to say only, "Guys, please. Don't even think about [asking questions]." A few security officers tried to block the press from following Big Brown to Barn 11, shouting and holding out arms, but the pack charged through in Dutrow and Big Brown's wake.

The day had started with so much more promise for Dutrow, the controversial trainer who had risen back into the spotlight despite, as Time magazine recently said, having a "racing rap sheet as long as Big Brown's stride." After making his first check on Big Brown in the morning, he had joined his personal Rat Pack -- Saratoga restaurant owner Louis Lazzinnaro, assistant exercise rider (and son of a Hall of Fame jockey) Walter Blum Jr., and jockey agent Ronnie Ebanks -- for shaves and haircuts at Richie's Barber Shop in Oyster Bay, N.Y. "We were all lined up, just like the four Musketeers, getting cleaned up," said Blum. "[Dutrow] was just along for the ride, but he loved it."

When Dutrow rejoined the men at around 2 p.m., strolling out of the barn tunnel in a pinstriped navy suit, red tie, and silver-rimmed sunglasses, Lazzinnaro greeted him by saying, "Rick! Rick! Will you sign my belt?" He was mocking Dutrow, who had called Lazzinnaro just seconds earlier, to ask him for a belt. Dutrow had forgotten his, and slipped on the black-leather loaner -- but not before calling everyone in his orbit as "babe." This is Dutrow's standard address -- what he calls Big Brown, what he calls his friends, what he calls reporters. Blum Jr. tends to use "babe" as well, and their cooler-than-thou attitude meshed well with their horse, whom Nevin had called a "rock star." It seemed the fame he had gained from winning the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness had gotten to Big Brown's head in advance of the Belmont.

"Over the last couple of weeks he's been getting so much attention that he's at the point where he thinks he's some kind of rock star," Nevin said before the race Saturday. "Every time he sees a camera, he has to stop and pose and look. He's very vain right now. It's funny to watch. He in his mind is so fabulous."

While standing outside Big Brown's stable on Saturday afternoon, hours before the race, Blum had a similar description of the horse: "Think of the coolest guy you know, and Big Brown is right there with him," Blum said. "He knows he's a superstar. Just the way he walks, and the way he does things -- he just knows."

If only Big Brown's swagger had followed him to the track, where he quickly faded into the third position on the outside, and then failed to fire when it was necessary. Desormeaux -- the same jockey who had failed in a Triple Crown bid aboard Real Quiet in 1998 -- said he had "no horse" on the track. There was no coolness about Desormeaux afterward; he said, "I think I'm numb, really. A little lost. Just feeling no emotion whatsoever; blank." Dutrow seemed equally numb; Iavarone, the owner, said he, his wife and kids had cried about the loss. Of Big Brown, Iavarone said, "If anything, he's just a little angry right now."

Belmont had turned into a ghost town by the time Big Brown was returned to his original barn -- to be washed, hugged by Iavarone, and receive a smattering of applause from a small pack of well-wishers who had hung around until the bitter end. Discarded betting slips littered the concrete floors; outside one entrance to the park, men tried desperately to hawk the stacks of t-shirts they had printed up for what they had hoped would be a historic event.

"C'mon, buy a shirt," one said, holding up the front, with the race's official logo, while trying to obscure the fact that it said "BIG BROWN" in giant letters on the back side.

"Five bucks. No, two for five," he said. "C'mon."

Asked what Big Brown had done for him at the Belmont, the t-shirt man said, "Nothing. I'm going to be out like $500. This was a bad day."