Big Brown Works Hard To Win The Haskell

Zenyatta remains unbeaten and Curlin is going back to dirt

A Column by Steve Davidowitz
August 7, 2008

The field for the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on Sunday, August 3rd was well below par for the class and the coin. But neither the quality of Big Brown's opposition nor the pile of money were important. No, the Haskell was to be a living laboratory, a chance to see where Big Brown was after impressively winning the Florida Derby, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes before looking as if he couldn't have defeated $10,000 claiming horses in the Belmont Stakes.

So what did we see in the Haskell? Did we see the Big Brown who was compared favorably to the great horses of the 1970s? Or did we see the Big Brown who was so shaky in the Belmont that he seemed on the verge of a quick retirement?

What I saw was a very good-looking, relatively fit Thoroughbred who ran a better race than he is being given credit for. At the same time, I saw a performance that suggests the next few weeks will determine if he is going to face a quick end to his meteoric career.

Big Brown broke to the lead but was restrained back to second when 20-1 shot Coal Play, trained by Nick Zito (sound familiar?), was put into high gear to take command going into the first turn.

With Coal Play setting solid G1 fractional splits under Monmouth's favorite son-jockey Joe Bravo, Kent Desormeaux angled Big Brown to a clear outside stalking position before asking him for more midway through the final turn.

Those among the 43,000 at the track and millions more watching on TV hoping to see 'the great' Big Brown didn't see him accelerate the way he did during his best performances. Yet he didn't lose contact with the streaking Coal Play either.

Coal Play continued to lead into the stretch and Big Brown looked almost beaten while failing to gain more than a few feet to the final 1/16 miles. Suddenly Coal Play began to shorten stride just a bit, showing his first sign of vulnerability. Just as suddenly Big Brown seemed to see his rival's vulnerability and dug in to resolutely drive past the front-runner and win the 9-furlong contest by 1 3/4 lengths.

At the bottom line, this wasn't the overpowering victory expected from those who believed he was a generous price at prohibitive 1-5 odds. Nor did it invite positive comparisons to the great 3-year-olds who had swept the Triple Crown in the 1970s. But Big Brown showed his heart winning the Haskell. He didn't give up when giving up was an option many other horses would have settled for.

He didn't destroy a seemingly overmatched field as if he was all the way back to full power. But he did win when he could have lost and the final clocking of 1:48.31 was good enough to earn a credible 107 Beyer Speed Figure, a surprisingly high number within a few points of Big Brown's career best.

Yet, while watching Big Brown bear out through the stretch, watching him struggle to accelerate, watching him win with some extra effort over relatively unaccomplished rivals, led me to believe that the left front hoof is still a problem, that the colt is favoring it under pressure and that we might not see Big Brown in a competitive race again.

That was not the view of his connections, of course, who praised Big Brown's performance as proof that he has come all the way back to top form and is now ready to take on 2007 Horse of the Year Curlin, perhaps in the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita on October 25th.

Check out 2008 Breeders' Cup future odds

We shall see about that as the rest of the summer unfolds. But right now, I chalk up their euphoria to sheer relief rather than an objective assessment as to where Big Brown really is. For sure, there is room for considerable improvement in his next start - if there is a next start - and as most fans of the sport will agree, it would be quite exciting to see Big Brown reach full power in a race against Curlin, whose connections have finally decided to forego the turf experiment and point, perhaps, to the Breeders' Cup Classic after all.

Curlin isn't going to run in the Arlington Million this Saturday. He isn't going to run in the Sword Dancer on the Saratoga turf course next week either. Instead, he's now slated to start in the 1 1/4-mile Woodward at Saratoga on September 1st. While owner Jess Jackson and trainer Steve Asmussen haven't committed to the Classic, they are strongly in favor of meeting Big Brown in that race should Big Brown actually make it to Santa Anita.

Bet on Curlin to win the Woodward Stakes at Bodog Racebook!

Zenyatta scores her seventh straight without a defeat

Aside from Big Brown and Curlin, the undefeated 4-year-old filly Zenyatta might be the most fascinating horse in training. Not only did she win the G1 Vanity Stakes at Hollywood Park on July 5th while not 100 percent healthy, she came back to post an exceptional score in the G2 Clement L. Hirsch at Del Mar on Saturday as if she will be a match for any filly of any age on the synthetic track that will be in use for the $2 million Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic on October 24th. Details of her winning performance and Big Brown's Haskell, plus three other noteworthy performances (by Breeders' Cup sprinters) appear below.

Del Mar, Saturday, August 2nd

* The Gr. 2 $300,000 Clement L. Hirsch Handicap, 1 1/6 miles on the Polytrack for fillies and mares 3 years old and up.

Fractional Splits: 23.34. .46.53. .1:10.75. .1:35.26. . .1:41.48 - Solid splits at every point of call that tool their toll on the front running duo of Silver Z and Romance is Diane, both of whom faded from their strength-sapping efforts.

Winning Beyer Speed Figure:108 - This was a serious G1 number for a filly who came from last place to out-kick the stretch running Model, who actually took off after the dueling speedsters on the final turn but couldn't handle Zenyatta's powerful, visually impressive wide move through the stretch.

The winner looked the part of a formidable Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic favorite, while the second-place finisher also seems a likely winner of graded stakes. Tough Tiz's Sis, who finished a respectable third in this race after her strong second-place finish to Zenyatta in the Vanity last month, ran evenly in reasonable contact with the fast pace and in reasonable contact with the top two through the stretch.

Monmouth Park, Sunday, August 3rd

* The Gr. 1 $1 million Haskell Invitational, 1 1/8 miles for 3-year-olds.

Fractional Splits: 23.05. .46.59. .1:10.85. .1:35.20. . .1:48.31 - Solid G1 splits with a very good fourth-quarter and an understandably slower final furlong.

Winning Beyer Speed Figure: 107 - As described earlier, Big Brown had to work hard for this win and the only negative, which could be meaningful as days and weeks go by, was his penchant to bear out through the stretch as if he is favoring his repaired left front hoof, the same hoof he bore out from during the stretch run of the Florida Derby after his first quarter crack incident. This problem is not going away.

Coal Play, who set the strong pace and was a clear second in this two-horse affair, may be emerging as the best 3-year-old in Nick Zito's barn. The late developing son of the late developing Horse of the Year Mineshaft has returned from an injury that sidelined him after a poor outing in March at Gulfstream with three encouraging performances at Monmouth Park. The first was a runaway win in an allowance route against modest 3-year-olds on May 25th, the next was a gritty third against older horses in a higher grade allowance race on July 4th, followed now by this excellent try in the Haskell.

Cool Coal Man, Zito's other, more highly publicized Haskell horse and a winner of two stakes this year, finished a non-threatening third, 4 1/2 lengths behind Coal Play.

Strong performances by candidates for Breeders' Cup sprint races

Teddy Drone won the $100,000 Teddy Drone Stakes on the Haskell undercard in 1:08.09, for a 113 Beyer Speed Figure, a performance that puts him right in the thick of the logical contenders for the $2 million Breeders' Cup Sprint on October 25th.

Indian Blessing won the Gr. 1 $250,000 Test Stakes at 7 furlongs for 3-year-old fillies at Saratoga on August 2nd. Using her newly adopted, patient style, Indian Blessing rated behind the front runners for about half a mile and simply crushed, scoring by seven widening lengths in 1:22.70 to earn a solid 111 Beyer Speed Figure. She is likely to go in the $1 million Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint on Friday, October 24th.

Any Limit, another candidate for the Filly & Mare Sprint, won the $150,000 Honorable Miss Handicap by 5 3/4 lengths at Saratoga on Friday, August 1st. She covered 6 furlongs in 1:09.98 for a 107 Beyer Speed Figure. She is trained by the venerable Hall of Famer Allen Jerkens, who has never won a Breeders' Cup race in his distinguished career.

Added notes: Arlington Park plays host to three Grade 1, world-class turf races on Saturday, August 9th and the races will not only be playable on bodoglife.com, but they will be widely televised throughout the world. All three of these races - the Arlington Million, the $750,000 Beverly D and the $400,000 Secretariat - have attracted accomplished European- and American-based contenders with implications for the rich Breeders' Cup turf events in the fall.

My thanks to several bodoglife.com readers who stopped by to say hello for my Claiming Crown seminars at Canterbury Park on Saturday. The day was as advertised, a strong collection of competitive races for claiming horses from 17 different states. Fact is, there is no day in American racing that can boast a roster with more career winners than Claiming Crown Day and Canterbury Park remains one of the hidden jewels of American racing.

Steve Davidowitz has written two highly acclaimed books on Thoroughbred racing---Betting Thoroughbreds and The Best and Worst of Thoroughbred Racing. He also is a regular contributor to Daily Racing Form's Simulcast Weekly and DRF Plus and his columns appear in the Bodog Racebook each week.