Big Brown, Big Frown

Big Brown came up short in his bid to be the first triple Crown winner in thirty years Saturday at the Belmont. Since Big Brown’s surprising last place finish, I have heard knowledgeable horsemen say when a favored horse lags so badly, there is an obvious health problem. Big Brown has checked out as fine by veterinarians. Two other points about big Brown have come to light, neither of which have seemingly not raised too many eyebrows in the world of horse racing, but have elsewhere.

The first is that Big Brown has been injected with steroids in the past. Steroids do build muscle in horses, but experts say it only serves to build up a horse’s energy. In fact, building up too much muscle can put a detrimental burden on a hore’s already slender ankle joints and lead to a breakdown. Assuch, steroid use in horse racing in banned in ten states. Officials have announced their will be an across the board ban by next year. It is still legal to use steroids for thoroughbreds in New York, but for the Belmont, Big brown was not given his monthly injection. So, was big Brown in some sort of withdrawal or was he running normally compared to his chemically enhanced runs before?

Second, jockey Kent Devereaux made a statemont in the post race interview to theeffect of he knew something was wrong with the horse, so he pulled him up because the horse was—and I quote—“too valuable to risk.” Now, I am not a PETA guy and I have argued before I do not think horse racing is animal cruelty, but such statement are what makes people believe it is. There is a lot of money involved in horse racing and anyone who invests millions into a champion horse is concerned about his investment, but anyone associated with the animal ought to state his concern is for the animal, not its cash value.

So here is the question: if the horse’s monetary value is more important than the horse’s well being, is a jockey obligated to run a horse ragged, even if there is a problem, if he has achance to run in the money? I am asking this because at the point Devereaux realized Big Brown was not going to win the race, he evidently pulled back to keep Big brown from suffering an injury like Eight Belle’s, which caused that horse to be euthanized. By making a comment that his rationale for to preserve Big Brown’s value, he made it seem as though later winnings and future stud fees were a deciding factor in how hard to push the horse to win.

Do horsemen commonly think this way? If so, it sounds as though one could make a good argument that, in a sport heavily dependent on gambling revenue, they are coming dangerously close to rigging races. Either one is pushing a race passed its limit to place in the money or holding one back because the jockey has a gut feeling something is “wrong” with the horse and all we eventually wind up with is his word on it. I am still not confident I would label it animal cruelty, but there is something shady the main concern being money.

I am curiouys now about the ethics of it all and am going to look around for more while the press is still hot on the story. If I find some interesting stuff, I will compile them into another post. The sport fascinates me. I would like to understand more the ethics of it all.