By Bob Markus



What's in a name? Big Brown. Sounds like something you'd want to scrape off your shoe. But it's the sweet smell of success that clings to the Kentucky Derby winner, who's on track to write his own chapter in the thorobred racing record book. He's already written the prologue, becoming just the seventh unbeaten Derby winner in the 134 year history of the event. None of the other six won it in his, or her (see Regret, 1915) fourth career start.

When, not if, he wins the Belmont he'll be only the second undefeated Triple Crown winner, the first being Seattle Slew in 1977. Not even the great Secretariat, considered by some to be the greatest four-legged racing machine of all time, could match that feat.

If I've thrown the word "great" around too liberally in these opening sentences, I apologize. I should know better. Knowledgeable people do not go around talking about "great" horses. A horseman will look at an animal that has just won his third consecutive major stakes race and say, "that looks like a pretty nice horse to me." If he's really high on the horse he might call him "good." The term "great" is reserved for the truly elite.

Common sense would seem to dictate that four races do not provide evidence enough to confer elite status on Big Brown. Certainly, Big Brown will have to complete his Triple Crown sweep in the next five weeks to earn the accolade. Barring a fluke injury, he will. His trainer, Rick Dutrow, has said, "I don't see any horse in the world who can beat him and I've watched them all." Still, since Affirmed became the last Triple crown winner in 1978, ten other horses have swept the first two legs, only to stumble at the final hurdle, the brutish 1 1/2 mile Belmont.

It happened recently in one three-year stretch from 2002 through 2004 when, first, War Emblem, then, Funny Cide, and, finally, Smarty Jones stubbed their hooves at the Belmont. Smarty Jones entered the Belmont unbeaten in 8 career starts and coming off a powerful 11 1/2 lengths victory in the Preakness. But he placed second to Birdstone in the Belmont and never raced again.

Ironically, the horse that has come closest to winning the Triple Crown in the last 30 years was Real Quiet in 1998, ridden by Kent Desormeaux, who is Big Brown's rider. Real Quiet was, literally, nosed out at the wire by Victory Gallop in the Belmont. An omen? Big Brown appears to be omen-proof. In his four races he has scarcely been challenged. He won his only 2-year-old race by 11 1/2 lengths. He prepped for the Florida Derby with a 12 3/4 length romp in an allowance race at Gulfstream Park, before punching his ticket to Churchill Downs with a five-length victory in the Florida Derby.

It's my personal view that most sports fans do not read most stories about horse racing. They may go to the races and they'll buy The Daily Racing Form, but only to check the past performance charts. When I was writing a column for The Chicago Tribune my own father told me he never read my column if it was about horse racing. That's one reason I almost never wrote about it. Another reason was that, even if I tried interviewing a horse, it never answered me. Of course there were some two-legged athletes like Alex Johnson, Steve Carlton and any UCLA or Georgetown center you care to name, who never answered me either.

I did cover two Kentucky Derbies and although I won't quibble with Churchill Downs' claim that the Derby is "the most exciting two minutes in sports," I will argue that the six hours that precede it are the most boring. And if you get out to the track at 6 in the morning as I did for my first Derby Day, the 12-hour wait is interminable. Of course, you can take the opposite approach, as I did a few years later, and wait until 4 o'clock in the afternoon to drive out to Churchill Downs. If you do that, though, you'd better be with someone like Dave Condon, who was the lead sports columnist at The Tribune and a notorious practical joker. At that time of day traffic is no problem. On the other hand, there's no place to park when you get there. Dave solved that problem quite easily by pointing to me and saying to the parking attendant, "I've got the lieutenant governor of Illinois here and he needs a good place to park." We were escorted to a V.I.P. lot right next to the track.

Big Brown has his own V.I.P. lot, his stall at any race track his trainer and owner care to run him. His itinerary for the next month is set. First to Baltimore for the Preakness, then New York for the Belmont. After that? There are decisions to be made. The Triple Crown may be all the casual sports fan knows about horse raing, but there are other races. Big money races. But, then, there also is the question of Big Brown's place in history. No Triple Crown winner has ever retired undefeated. Could Big Brown be horse racing's answer to boxing's Rocky Marciano?

Time will tell. Not to mention News Week, ESPN, and Sports Illustrated.