'Brown' colors the Triple Crown picture
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The show will move to Maryland in two weeks and it will be different. No longer is there any uncertainty about who is the best 3-year-old horse.
No longer are there any questions about Big Brown's possible Triple Crown credentials. He took care of that Saturday with his 4 3/4-length victory in the Kentucky Derby. In a 20-horse field with a handful of contenders, Big Brown blew them all away.
"The winner is a monster," said David Carroll, who trains Denis of Cork, the 27-1 shot who finished third behind Big Brown and ill-fated Eight Belles, who ran the race of her life and then fractured two ankles and had to be euthanized.
Now the question is not whether Big Brown can win the Preakness May 17, since no other Derby horse is entered, but by how much? And a triumph in the Preakness will bring Big Brown to New York and the Belmont Stakes on the first Saturday in June and produce another question - can he win the Triple Crown, something that hasn't been done in 30 years?
Two years ago, it looked like Barbaro had the right stuff after roaring to a 6 1/2-length victory over Bluegrass Cat in the Derby and immediately was tagged with the "superstar" label.
The story took a cruel twist at the Preakness when he broke down with injuries so serious he had to be euthanized many months later.
Thoroughbred racing has had only 11 Triple Crown winners and none since Affirmed in 1978. The 30-year gap between winners is the longest in history.
The Derby win is in the books, but it takes more than that to win the Triple Crown - it takes a presence, an aura in which the legendary horses sense they are better than their peers.
Big Brown had shown some of that before the Derby. The Kentucky-bred son of Boundary out of Mien had won his three previous races by 29 lengths.
But those were his only races, and Derby winners are supposed to have more experience. Until Saturday, no Derby winner since 1915 had been so lightly raced. Add in the fact that the No. 20 outside post had produced only one Derby winner - in 1929 - and the skeptics dismissed Big Brown.
Big Brown's trainer Rick Dutrow had so much confidence in his horse that it bordered on cockiness during Derby Week.
"I've got the best horse," said Dutrow. "I haven't seen a horse that can beat him."
Saturday no one could. "I had a great trip, but I just wasn't fast enough" said Robby Albarado, who rode Z Fortune to 10th in the Derby. "Big Brown was just amazing. What more can I say?"
Yesterday, Dutrow said his plan was to spend this week in Kentucky and attempt to get Big Brown ready for the Preakness.
Big Brown will be the overwhelming favorite. And there is no question the horse is much the best. It is his to lose now.
Jockey Kent Desormeaux, who won his third Kentucky Derby Saturday, has called Big Brown the fastest horse he has ridden.
"He's got the talent, he's got the brain," said Desormeaux. "He's got the ability to have multiple gears. This is what [only] Derby winners can do. They can move into a position and then cruise and then take you to another position and then cruise again; that's what he does."
That's what Big Brown did Saturday, and as the countdown to the Preakness begins, Big Brown not only will be attempting to win a horse race, he'll be chasing history as well.
Mark Blaudschun can be reached at blaudschun@globe.com. 