As any one who follows horse racing, and by “follows” I obviously mean watches the 3 big races and forgets about the sport until next year… anyways, anyone who follows it knows that The Preakness is tomorrow with Big Brown trying to win the Triple Crown – a feat that hasn’t been accomplished in exactly 30 years.
Affirmed in 1978 still remains the last Triple Crown winner. Sadly, the last Triple Crown winner left alive, Seattle Slew, passed away on May 7, 2002. There have been several close calls in the past decade or so with horses winning The Kentucky Derby and The Preakness as you can see from the list below:
| 1997 | Silver Charm | 2nd |
| 1998 | Real Quiet | 2nd |
| 1999 | Charismatic | 3rd |
| 2002 | War Emblem | 8th |
| 2003 | Funny Cide | 3rd |
| 2004 | Smarty Jones | 2nd |
Hopefully things will be different this year because there is no bigger support of ‘Brown’ success around the world than the Angry Brown Guy. I’m hoping to have some real good news to report tomorrow after the race but there has been major talk of Big Brown’s jockey tempting fate with the horse racing gods. He has called out that his horse will win this race easily and although that type of confidence is nice, it seems to have come off as very ignorant.
Big Brown has been the picture of cool this Triple Crown season. He loves to strike a pose for the cameras and saved his best performances for the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. The only thing that has tried to slow the colt is the quarter crack.
The injury is having about as much luck at stopping Big Brown as the competition. Several veterinarians characterized the quarter crack as innocuous and said racing in Saturday’s grueling 1½-mile Belmont shouldn’t pose an additional risk to the strapping bay colt.
A quarter crack is a vertical crack in the hoof wall between the toe and heel, usually extending into the coronary band, where the hoof meets the skin of the leg. Healing time can range from a few days to a few months, depending on the severity of the crack.
That is from an ESPN article citing that Big Brown’s biggest threat to the Triple Crown, Casino Drive, has a bruised hoof but still remains in the race.