Big Brown Has Big Rally, Wins Haskell

OCEANPORT, N.J., Aug. 3 -- For a brief moment on the far turn Sunday, a nightmarish replay of the Belmont Stakes appeared to be unfolding. Big Brown began to drift wide after a lengthy chase of leader Coal Play, and the last time he did that, he barely made it to the finish line.

Unlike the inexplicable disaster in New York on June 7, however, jockey Kent Desormeaux did not pull up the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner. Instead, the Hall of Fame rider asked his horse for everything he had, and Big Brown responded with a dramatic quarter-mile run to overhaul Coal Play inside the final 10 strides and win the Grade I $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park.

The performance in no way looked like the effortless victories Big Brown rang up in the first five races of his career, but the 1¾-length win in the prestigious 1 1/8 -mile Haskell reestablished his reputation as the best 3-year-old in the country.

For part-owner Mike Iavarone, trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. and Desormeaux, the result appeared more of a relief than triumph. When Coal Play, from the barn of Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito, widened his lead turning for home, Big Brown's connections momentarily felt defeated.

"I thought we were beat at the top of the stretch when Kent went to the whip, but he showed his heart today," Iavarone said.

Desormeaux revealed after the race his strategy was to take the lead from the start and simply try to run the field into the ground. Only one other runner in the seven-horse field, third-place finisher Cool Coal Man, had won a graded stakes race, and the crowd of 45,132 sent off Big Brown as an overwhelming 1-5 favorite.

Big Brown broke fast and went to the front, but jockey Joe Bravo gunned Coal Play to the lead in the run to the first turn, and Desormeaux restrained Big Brown, then angled him out to his favored stalking position on the backstretch.

Coal Play, who had won only two of previous eight starts, cruised through a sharp half-mile in 46.59 seconds and six furlongs in 1 minute 10.85 seconds. Midway through the far turn, the horse bid for the upset.

"I thought we had a hell of a shot turning for home," Zito said. "I thought to myself, 'We could do this again.' I'm very happy right now. We made [Big Brown] run, that's for sure."

Desormeaux, in a deep slump since the Belmont, refused to let Big Brown lose. Criticized by Big Brown's trainer, owner and members of the media for his performance in the Belmont, the jockey roused his mount with the whip at the quarter pole and struck him 12 times in a furious stretch run until Big Brown drew clear and won in a fast time of 1:48.31.

"The Belmont was obviously so sad," he said afterward. "I was sad for the race fans. We didn't have that fantasy, that storybook tale. But today it feels so good to be right. I feel like I'm holding a winning ticket."

Less than a half-hour after the race, questions about Big Brown's next race already began to surface. While Dutrow and Iavarone said the Breeders' Cup Classic on Oct. 25 at Santa Anita Park was the ultimate goal, the path Big Brown would take to get there has not been decided.

A loss in the Haskell would have sent Big Brown into retirement. Now, he is back in the game.

"He showed a lot of heart and determination in a side of Big Brown I didn't know existed until today," Iavarone said.

Racing Notes: Top Maryland jockey Anna Rose Napravnik broke her left tibia and fibula Saturday when her mount fell in the $75,000 Nick Shuk Memorial Stakes at Delaware Park. Napravnik, 20, was aboard Pickering, who clipped heels in the stretch with Sir Diamond and fell. Another horse, Termsofengagement, fell over Pickering. Both horses were unhurt.

Napravnik was taken to Christiana Hospital. A titanium rod and two screws were inserted in the leg, according to her agent, Robert Klesaris.

At the time of the fall, Napravnik was the second-leading rider at Delaware with 65 victories and more than $1.8 million in earnings.