(Insert cliche about highs and lows of horse racing here)

Considering the general tone of this blog (sarcastic and gambling-oriented), I'm going to try to do this as tactfully as possible. Fuck you, Churchill Downs, and your big day highways. Before I get into my tangent, know this: I know little to nothing about track maintenance. I watch the tractors go by in the mornings at Saratoga, and point and smile at them like I'm five years old. I know that tracks get harrowed and turf courses get watered. Beyond that, I go by word of mouth and visual and physical evidence. And once I saw that muskrat Elite Squadron go :21.98 and :43.70 and keep going to win in 1:21.53 today, I thought to myself, these fuckers are at it again.

Every racetrack in America soups up their main track to some extent for its respective big day(s) of racing. Times at Belmont are usually quick on Belmont day. But the track at CD on Derby and BC Day would be a huge running gag if the results weren't so freaking tragic. After Pine Island and Fleet Indian both broke down in the same race in BC '06, I hoped I'd seen the last of the paved highway in Louisville. Today, with the Elite Squadron race and the eventual breakdown of Eight Belles, it apparently is still an issue.

I know what you're saying, a few breakdowns does not a dangerous racetrack make, and horses are going to break down no matter what, but spare me. Show me a track whose surface changes this starkly for the worse on its big day(s) of racing. Name me a racetrack that had four serious breakdowns (counting Chelokee) on five big days of racing in less than two years. During the rest of the meet, Churchill looks like a fine track for the equine. I watch plenty of replays from the Downs, and I rarely, if ever, see a horse go down. But on these showcase days, the track somehow manages to quicken a few seconds, and horses invariably begin to start falling.

Eight Belles deserved better than that, guys. The fans deserved better, the bettors deserved better, the owners, trainers, jockeys and horses deserved better. Stop fucking with the track. You people are the reason that dipshits across America are installing Polytrack and Cushion Track and Pro-Ride and Tapeta left and right, because on your biggest days, out of a desire for track records (as if anybody gives two shits about track records anymore), you risk having these beautiful animals collapse and die in front of the world. You risk having our sport sustain yet another black eye when it's already down for the count.

Rant over.

As for Big Brown, this horse apparently did a lot of growing up over the past five weeks. The colt I saw win the Florida Derby was way too immature and green to deal with everything that would be thrown at him today. But today, the son of Boundary was simply a machine. Nothing fazed the horse, he was an utter professional for every step of the ten furlongs, and if his feet trouble are indeed behind him, we're probably (hopefully) looking at racing's first Triple Crown winner in 30 years. I'm no doe-eyed dreamer, I've seen firsthand the amount of crap that can come in the way of a TC-worthy horse. Hell, the pinhead on Big Brown's back cost Real Quiet the Crown in '98, so don't rule out him fucking this horse over too. However, and you'll be hearing this a lot from now until the Preakness, this is such a bad crop of three-year-olds, and he looked so damn good in the Derby, the Crown is his to lose. Much can change from now until the Belmont on June 7, but barring physical setbacks, I sure as shit won't be betting against him.

It's obviously hard to root for insufferable douches like Dutrow and Iavarone, and there's definitely a part inside me that would love to see him get beaten. But as a New Yorker who's had to suffer through three lame Belmonts after the exhilarating buzz of Smarty Jones' TC try in '04, I at least want to see him cruise at Pimlico.

To close, I had so much damn fun doing this blog over the past few weeks, that I just might keep the URL, scratch the Derby-specific gimmicks, and comment haphazardly on Triple Crown goings on until the Belmont. In fact, I think I will. See you soon then? I suck at exits.