ELMONT, N.Y. — He’s big. He’s brown, with a white spot on his forehead. He’s stunning. He’s fast. He’s quiet.
He’s drooling.
Perhaps he’s drooling in anticipation of Saturday’s race or in anticipation of a carrot from the delivery truck (not UPS) that has just pulled up outside. The driver unloads a plastic bag holding dozens of carrots, and a worker in Barn 2 carries them inside toward Stall 8.
Let Big Brown eat.
On Thursday afternoon the big, brown, stunning, fast, drooling triple-threat 3-year-old thoroughbred stands and waits.
A rooster is cock-a-doodle-doing. Someone tell him the sun rose hours ago.
On Thursday afternoon, about 1,000 people spread out at Belmont Park to bet on claimers and disclaimers. On Saturday afternoon, 135,000 people will squeeze into Belmont Park to witness Big Brown’s run for glory, history, the final jewel in the Triple Crown and a carrot. Cue the rooster for the 140th Belmont Stakes at this venerable track alongside the Long Island Rail Road tracks.
Big Brown’s home away from his old Kentucky home is an extended walk from the clubhouse — through a tunnel, down a muddy lane, past the intersection of Count Fleet Road and Secretariat Avenue — and in a freshly painted barn laden with pots of red, purple and white flowers. His middle stall, next to a small office, once was the temporary residence of Empire Maker, the 2003 winner of the Belmont Stakes.
They tried, they failed
Empire Maker ended Funny Cide’s bid to become the 12th horse to finish first in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. Numerous others have failed since 1978 to complete the triple. Now, a horse of a different color and time must try to stop Big Brown’s bid.
Big Brown, with perky ears, must hear the track announcer in the distance and the traffic from a nearby busy boulevard. He is close enough to see a Wendy’s across that street. Doesn’t seem so appealing an abode, but a track official (familiar enough to call him only by his first name) tells me, “Big is relaxing in his suite today.”
Looked like a stall to an interloper.
After unsuccessfully avoiding a street-washing vehicle, the visitor, all wet as usual, asked a man in a golf cart where he could find Big Brown. The man raised two fingers (a good sign).
A couple of police-type aluminum barriers had been placed at the entrance to Barn 2, but there was an opening at the end, and the sightseer took it. He thought it odd that there wasn’t security or a crowd or other media moles.
He strolled past a stall with the name “Dulcet Tone” magic-marked on tape and looked toward another stall, where Big Brown, with big, brown eyes, stared and salivated. Suddenly, two men, one in a guard’s outfit and another in a white fedora, and a woman, wearing a foul expression, materialized.
“How did you get in here?” the rent-a-cop said brusquely.
“I just walked through the front,” the accused gatecrasher replied. “There wasn’t a “Keep Out” warning.”
“No paparazzi,” the woman said.
“I don’t own a camera.”
“You must go,” the guard said.
He went. The man in the white fedora followed. He introduced himself as Herasmo Gonzalez, who will groom Big Brown nice and pretty Saturday. (Gonzalez gave him a bath Wednesday.)
“Who’re you with?” he asked politely.
“The Denver Post, and, on occasion, ESPN.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to talk to Big Brown.”
“What’s your name?”
“Dr. John Dolittle.”
“Come back at 3. Rick will be here.”
Trained to talk
But the gatecrasher doesn’t want to talk to Rick Dutrow, Big Brown’s trainer. He has done all the rubbish-ranting lately.
When asked Thursday during a conference call about the possibility of other jockeys conspiring to prevent a Big Brown victory, Dutrow said: “This is such a huge race. If someone did something like that, they might get assassinated after the race.”
On rival Casino Drive, owned by a Japanese businessman: “They think Godzilla was dead. They’re going to find out he’s not dead. He’s here.”
There’s “no way in the world,” Dutrow said, that Casino Drive, the early second favorite, “can beat Big Brown,” and “I feel like (the race is) already a foregone conclusion.”
If Big Brown were Mr. Ed, he would order Dutrow to shut up.
As the visitor was escorted away, he thought about how he had wanted to ask Big Brown about steroid use. The undisputed, undefeated champ was last given an anabolic steroid April 15, two weeks before the Derby. But would he shake his head, just as Barry Bonds (The B.B. Connection?) always does? And will there be an *?
The visitor would ask Big Brown how his cracked hoof (which has been compared to a hangnail) actually feels, and if Icabad Crane’s Jeremy Rose could challenge him to the finish line, becoming known as the losing-by-a-head-or-less horseman, and what it would mean to follow in the hoofsteps of Sir Barton (1919), Count Fleet (1943), Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977), Affirmed (1978) and the other six who have won the trilateral tiara, then retiring to stud.
Inside the barn, with a dulcet tone, a horse whinnied.
Was he really saying, “I’ll win it”?
He’s Golden Brown.
Woody Paige: 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com
