CHAPTER ONE
The Outside View
Why Big Brown Was a Bad Bet
“IT’S A FOREGONE CONCLUSION.” So proclaimed Rick Dutrow on the likelihood that his race horse, Big Brown, would capture the coveted Triple Crown in 2008. Winning the Triple Crown is a tremendous feat. A horse must win the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes on three tracks of different lengths over just five weeks. Before Big Brown’s attempt, only eleven horses had succeeded in the preceding century, and none had done so in the previous thirty years. Here was Big Brown, only one race away from horse-racing “immortality.”1
Dutrow, the horse’s trainer, had reason to be optimistic. Not only was his three-year-old colt undefeated in his first five starts, he was dominant. ...
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