Big Brown: To Fulfill the Promise of Barbaro ?

The parallels are eerie, and hopefully they end here. Barbaro & Big Brown are both Kentucky-breds, with a profound influence of Native Dancer in their pedigrees. Both won their first race at age 2, by huge margins (8 1/2 & 11 1/2), at a mile on turf. The connections of both planned to keep them on turf, but tried them on dirt at Gulfstream Park early in their 3yo season, and kept them on dirt after they won. Both won the Florida Derby in their final prep for the Kentucky Derby, from outside posts, five weeks before the Derby. Both entered the Derby lightly raced and unbeaten (5/5 & 3/3). In the Derby, both enjoyed clean stalking trips under top, veteran riders (Prado & Desormeaux), took over at will approaching the stretch, and drew off to easy, lengthy scores (6 1/2 & 4 3/4 lengths) in decent time (2:01 2/5 & 2:01 4/5) before nearly identical sized crowds (157,536 & 157,770), both the second-largest crowds in Derby history.

After a young brilliant athletic career is ended, sports fans are left to wonder what could have been. Every longtime Red Sox fan believes Barry Bonds would be chasing Tony Coligniaro's career home run record if not for a tragic beanball in 1967. And so racing fans were left to conjecture about what might have happened had Barbaro not broken down, and instead confronted Bernardini (then a newcomer who went on to become quite a good horse himself) late in the Preakness. And if he had won, whether he'd have gone on to become the first Triple Crown winner in 28 years. And whether his owners would have followed through on hints they might move him back to the turf after the Triple Crown, perhaps even entering The Arc de Triomphe, Europe's premier race. This would have been the first time ever that an American classic winner went to Europe to take on the world's best grass horses. Before Barbaro, only the incomparable Secretariat showed such brilliance on both dirt and turf.

And now we have Big Brown. He cannot yet begin to be compared to Secretariat, who had already run 13 races by this point in his career, and won the Derby in track record time. But he can very much be compared to Barbaro. And racing fans around the world hope that Big Brown completes the journey that Barbaro did not. Here's hoping that Big Brown stares down a talented newcomer in the Preakness, wins the Belmont to become the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years, goes back to turf and takes on the world's best in the Arc de Triomphe in the fall. Among his opponents there could be Curlin, last year's top American 3yo, whose owners have hinted at such a try.

Such an outcome could not come at a better time for the sport of horse racing.