Desormeaux to blame???

[joe horn]

R.D. calls him out.........I would like to see Shaq get the mount! Did he look fit in those silks sat.

[ArchDandy]

I dont see how anyone can criticize an action intended for the wellbeing of the horse, it may have cost the connections their pride but the horse is fine...we think. I cant even begin to imagine what would have happened if Kent laid down the whip and big brown went down.

[joe horn]

nothing short of banning the sport.........believe it would have come up!

[Dave C]

Blaming the jockey is easy. KD was encouraging BB all the way down the backstretch just to keep pace with ToE. It just wasn't BB's day, if there is nothing in the tank the jockey isn't going to get the horse to the bank.

[horsenuts]

OTOH, KD gave a horrid ride the first 1/4 mile but despite this fact BB simply had nothing to give when it mattered. He was a 'dead horse' and that means the problem lies under the hood which falls back on the trainer. BB appeared dehydrated not sweating as needed on such a sultry day and his amino acids may have been way out of kilter as a result.

[Strategic Maneuver]

At this point, I think it is really lame of Dutrow to start blaming KD's ride now. Too much time has gone by now. It smacks of desperation.

[TBG]

Kent really did a poor job from the very beginning. Big Brown may not have gotten a good break, but then Kent jerked him around trying to get position early. If Big Brown was the horse many people were saying he was his early position shouldn't have been that important. Kent should have just tucked him in and waited for an opening. There shouldn't have been the great urgency. He almost seemed to panic. Usually in a 1-1/2 mile race a hole will open up somewhere. Then at the end of the race when it was obvious Big Brown wasn’t going to fire, it was great Kent didn’t abuse him, but there was not reason to pull him up. He could have just let him gallop to the finish. Kent even said that there was nothing physically wrong with Big Brown. He could have finished even if it was last. By pulling him up, he made the situation far more dramatic than it needed to be. This was a major race in front of an audience of millions. People had thoughts of Eight Belles all over again. There wasn’t any reason for that. Big Brown may not have fired, but he didn’t like being pulled up for no reason either. Other top horses have had bad days, but the jockeys haven’t pulled them up because of it. It just really didn’t look like it was necessary for Big Brown to be pulled up.

[ArchDandy]

Kent had the whole world watching him, an exageration of safety wont kill us...

[Bunty Lawless]

At this point, I think it is really lame of Dutrow to start blaming KD's ride now. Too much time has gone by now. It smacks of desperation.

It is lame of any trainer to blame the jockey when there are so many other factors and any one of them might have made it impossible for a good horse to run better.

OTOH, KD gave a horrid ride the first 1/4 mile but despite this fact BB simply had nothing to give when it mattered. He was a 'dead horse' and that means the problem lies under the hood which falls back on the trainer. BB appeared dehydrated not sweating as needed on such a sultry day and his amino acids may have been way out of kilter as a result.

I tend to agree about the first part of the race, to the degree that I would have preferred KD to just sit and hang on and let BB decide if he wanted to run up on the rail and end up getting kicked. That was all KD pushing to be first in the slot. He could have saved BB's turbo charge strength, if KD had just waited for an easier transition to the outside, IMO. But to jerk BB around so much, him being such a big horse, with so far to go, that just didn't make a whole lot of sense (as an observer). That said, it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, instead of the one in the huddle in real time.

The drastic changes in BB's routine (steroids, training, deeper track surface, etc.) played more of a roll than KD. KD just didn't help it all. BB was a bit dull (misreported as calm) in the post parade. He didn't appear up for it, as he did for the other two races.

I think he might have been a bit affected by the heat, on top of everything else, but he was more lathered behind than the others, so I disagree that he didn't sweat. He didn't need the added stress the first part of the race put on him, plus the heat, plus all the other changes and issues with his foot. A lot to overcome, with so much on the line. He wasn't a fit horse for the race.

[katydid]

Kent really did a poor job from the very beginning. Big Brown may not have gotten a good break, but then Kent jerked him around trying to get position early. If Big Brown was the horse many people were saying he was his early position shouldn't have been that important. Kent should have just tucked him in and waited for an opening. There shouldn't have been the great urgency.

Well, IMO... there was a good reason he moved him with such urgency. Big Brown was panicking and at times looked like he was about to take off with Kent. For safety's sake I think he made the wise decision to get him out of there ASAP. I guess one could argue if the other jockeys capitalized on Big Brown's apparent inability to handle being in the thick of things. .. I guess we should blame them =P

[springboro]

Ugh, the more I hear from that trainer Dutrow the less class I think he possesses. What a bad sportsman and horrible representative. A shame, a real shame, that Big Brown is in his hands.

[Bunty Lawless]

Ugh, the more I hear from that trainer Dutrow the less class I think he possesses. What a bad sportsman and horrible representative. A shame, a real shame, that Big Brown is in his hands.

He does seem to bring new meaning to the phrase, "A good horse will run in spite of its trainer".

[Tucumcari]

And apparently even when he has a clown on his back, for the most part. He's allowed one loss due to a rider's washing out

[Foggytrip]

Kent did what any fool would have done. Fall asleep in the gate, try to take back, get pinned in, then bull your way out...All this while the horse was tossing his head, rank, and running up heels. Whats wrong with that ride?

[horsenuts]

Kent did what any fool would have done. Fall asleep in the gate, try to take back, get pinned in, then bull your way out...All this while the horse was tossing his head, rank, and running up heels. Whats wrong with that ride?

That's pretty much what I saw as well. Sad really coming from a HoF rider.... KD has never really impressed me in the big races as the Real Quiet debacle has always stuck in my mind and now this. Still, BB wasn't going to win if Houdini had ridden him but it doesn't excuse such a crappy/bug boy/panic stricken type ride.