Big Brown - On The Threshold Of Greatness

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/sports/othersports/01racing.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

From a Leisurely Trot to a Showdown at Belmont
By JOE DRAPE
Published: June 1, 2008
Each morning, Casino Drive is saddled up and ridden along the backside of Belmont Park. For an hour, he darts between barns, sends puffs of dirt in the air as he clip-clops down shady paths and garners admiring stares from the most hard-bitten of horsemen. When Casino Drive, a chestnut colt, finally hits the racetrack for a gallop, he swallows the ground with his giant strides.

When he skips off the track, the tour of the nooks and crannies of the grand old racetrack starts over for another hour.

?It is the way we do things at home in Japan,? said Nobutaka Tada, racing manager for Casino Drive?s owner, Hidetoshi Yamamoto. ?We warm up. We cool down. We are never in a hurry. We try to make sure he is a happy horse.?

By 6:38 p.m. Saturday, the world will know whether this leisurely stamina building has paid off, and if Casino Drive was, indeed, the formidable obstacle that many expect him to be on Big Brown?s path to fame. By then the 140th running of the Belmont Stakes will be in the books, and thoroughbred racing will have its 12th Triple Crown champion. Or not.

Big Brown?s trainer, Rick Dutrow, makes no bones about what he believes destiny holds for his Kentucky Derby and Preakness champion, or how he feels about the nine other horses that are expected to enter the starting gate with his colt for the grueling mile-and-a-half marathon known as the Test of the Champion.

?I feel like it?s actually a foregone conclusion,? Dutrow said. ?To me, I just see the horses he?s in with and I see our horse, so I expect him to win this race.?

Last June, however, Yamamoto ? the chief executive of a company that develops, designs and produces video games and slot machines ? had a vision about what destiny held for Casino Drive. He watched on television as Rags to Riches ran down Curlin in the stretch to become the third filly and the first in 102 years to win the Belmont.
Immediately, Yamamoto telephoned his trainer, Kazuo Fujisawa, and told him that Casino Drive, a gangly 2-year-old colt that he had paid $950,000 for as a yearling, was bound for New York. It was hardly an impetuous call. Rags to Riches?s mother, Better Than Honour, gave birth not only to Casino Drive but also to Jazil, the 2006 Belmont winner. Why couldn?t another of her offspring win the race?

?We did not bring Casino Drive here,? Tada said. ?His pedigree led us here.?
Yamamoto and Fujisawa, Japan?s leading trainer the past two years, may have been in a hurry to get here, but Casino Drive was not. The son of Mineshaft, he was a rambunctious colt at 2 and prone to minor injuries that kept him from the track. He was unveiled in grand fashion in February, when he ran off with an 11 ?-length victory in a mile-and-an-eighth race.

Fujisawa had hoped to start Casino Drive at least once more in Japan. Instead, an influenza outbreak in kept the colt moving from racetrack to training centers to escape illness. He also endured a lengthy quarantine to prove he was disease free before shipping to Belmont on April 30. Ten days later, Casino Drive finally got his second start, winning the Grade II Peter Pan Stakes by five and three-quarter lengths.

His jockey that afternoon, Kent Desormeaux, seemed mightily impressed. Desormeaux, after all, is Big Brown?s regular rider.

?We?ve got our hands full,? Desormeaux said, referring to Casino Drive. ?He?s the only colt around who can stride with Big Brown. It?s going to be a great race.?

Edgar Prado picked up the mount on Casino Drive. Prado has ridden in eight Belmont Stakes, winning in 2002 with Sarava and in 2004 with Birdstone, ruining the Triple Crown bids of War Emblem and Smarty Jones. In both instances, Prado was on long shots ? Sarava was 71-1 and Birdstone 36-1. He will not be on one Saturday as Casino Drive figures to be the second betting choice.

Dutrow is having no talk of an upset. He says he will be running to the winner?s circle before Casino Drive hits the quarter pole.

?The Japanese horse has so much to prove,? Dutrow said. ?I don?t know if he?s on the top of his game training here. I would not depend on this horse for second.?

Tada, who arrived here with Casino Drive, has taken Dutrow?s brash taunts in stride.
?I enjoy listening to his comments,? he said. ?It sounds like he knows our horse more than us.?

Tada will also decide soon whether to enter another of Yamamoto?s horses, Spark Candle, in the Belmont to ensure a fast pace, and perhaps soften Big Brown for Casino Drive?s late run. In the Peter Pan, Spark Candle pressed Mint Lane through a rapid three-quarters of a mile in 1:10.47 before fading to sixth.

?Big Brown is a great horse, and we are honored to be running with him in a great race like the Belmont Stakes,? Tada said. ?We?re also trying to win.?

BIG BROWN GETS NEW SUTURES Big Brown, who missed three days of training this week with a slight crack on the inside of the left front hoof, had his steel sutures changed Saturday by the hoof specialist Ian McKinlay.

?The little crack looks like it?s in pretty good shape,? Rick Dutrow said from Belmont Park. ?It?s not bugging the horse in any kind of way. We?re right on course, right on target.? (AP)

 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/s...ts/03brown.html


Following the Money Behind Big Brown
By JOE DRAPE
Published: June 3, 2008

James Tagliaferri is bullish on horse racing, a sport that he is still learning, but also one that has already rewarded his St. Thomas Island-based asset-management company handsomely. His company, TAG Virgin Islands, is the real money behind Big Brown and his owner, International Equine Acquisitions Holdings. And Tagliaferri is also the real brains behind a proposed $100 million equine fund that he contends will revolutionize the horse racing business.

Throughout Big Brown?s Triple Crown bid, Tagliaferri has ceded the limelight to Michael Iavarone, the I.E.A.H. co-president. Few people even know of Tagliaferri?s connection to the horse. But it is that connection that has put Big Brown on the verge of the first Triple Crown in 30 years.

Whether or not Big Brown captures the Belmont Stakes on Saturday to become the 12th Triple Crown champion, Tagliaferri and his clients have experienced in 15 months the kind of success most horse people spend a lifetime chasing unsuccessfully. The colt is undefeated, has earned more than $2.7 million in purses and is set to stand as a stallion in a deal worth at least $60 million, or perhaps as much as $120 million if he wins the Triple Crown.

Iavarone has been the face of Big Brown?s human connections, an often-larger-than-life crew that includes the brash trainer Rick Dutrow. But Tagliaferri, an investor who for more than 40 years has gravitated toward what he calls ?very vanilla? propositions, had the vision that put them in the limelight, even while he stayed out of it.

Since March 2007, clients of TAG Virgin Islands have invested more than $25 million in I.E.A.H. for a 60 percent stake in its racing stables. Tagliaferri conceded that it was an unorthodox investment for a company that handles more than $300 million.
None of this would have been possible had it not been for a social encounter a couple of years ago at a Yankees game, where Iavarone pitched I.E.A.H.?s vision of a 23,000-square-foot, $17 million Ruffian Equine Medical Center as a potential investment.

Tagliaferri was intrigued. In 2007, more than $15.4 billion was bet on horses in North America, more than $1.1 billion in purses was distributed and more than $1.2 billion was spent purchasing thoroughbreds, according to the Jockey Club.
?This was a business unrecognized on Wall Street, but very much like Wall Street,? said Tagliaferri, 68, whose firm first opened in 1983 in Connecticut, before moving to St. Thomas in 2006. ?It?s impacted by some of the same characteristics that drives commodities like gold. It?s risky, but biotechs can be riskier than horses, and believe me I?ve seen biotechs of mine go down.?

Iavarone, 37, and his co-president, Rich Schiavo, meanwhile, believed they had proved to be exceptional judges of horseflesh with a solid business model: go out and buy proven horses, preferably off the beaten path, and run them at the highest levels.

It was, however, an expensive model. So, on behalf of his clients, Tagliaferri structured the financing on a per-horse basis with an option to collect interest or become a shareholder in I.E.A.H.
?We were keeping our heads above water putting partnerships together, but we didn?t have enough money to keep large pieces for the company,? Iavarone said. ?We exploded when Jim gave us the money to grow.?

Their arrangement was successful almost immediately. Iavarone purchased the sprinter Benny the Bull for $900,000 after a minor stakes victory in Iowa, and he has gone on to win $1.8 million in purses and increase his value as a stallion to beyond $10 million. Kip Deville was bought for $525,000 after a stakes victory in Texas; he has won $2.6 million in purses, including a victory in the Breeders? Cup Mile that has increased his stud value to as much as $20 million.

Before getting into business with I.E.A.H., Tagliaferri said he was aware of Iavarone?s past work history, which included a fine and suspension for making unauthorized trades at the A. R. Baron & Co. brokerage firm, now defunct. .

He also knew that Iavarone had sold penny stocks, and was not the ?high-profile investment banker on Wall Street? that he has portrayed himself to be.

?What I was, what I am betting on, is Mike?s track record,? Tagliaferri said. ?I have guys on Wall Street that haven?t performed as well as him.?
Tagliaferri is in the process of getting a $20 million insurance policy on Iavarone, underscoring the value that Tagliaferri places on his partner.

Tagliaferri said he believed that the fundamentals of a $100 million horse fund were in place. I.E.A.H. is setting up an investment committee, which, along with Iavarone and his team of bloodstock agents, would act as a research and development component. He said the biggest innovation would be the quarterly appraisal of the fund?s value, which would allow investors to get in and out.
?And instead of one horse, you?d have many horses just like when you are holding a range of stocks,? Tagliaferri said.

Iavarone said the company had developed a broodmare band of high-quality fillies and at least two potentially high-class stallions, Benny the Bull and Kip Deville.

?We?d continue to buy proven horses,? Iavarone said, ?But we?d be generating stallion fees, and selling their progeny at auction sales. Those are two steady streams of revenue.?

When breeding farms came calling after Big Brown?s victory in the Kentucky Derby, I.E.A.H. turned down a $30 million offer for half of his stallion rights from the European-based Coolmore. While Big Brown is not a part of the projected fund, he is a gold-embossed brochure promoting I.E.A.H. credentials as successful horse speculators.
Still, Iavarone says none of this is about the money, though there is a great deal involved. To prove it, he promises that win or lose, as long as Big Brown comes out of the Belmont healthy, the colt will race for the remainder of his 3-year-old year. He is more than a hedge horse, he said; he is a great one.

?We believe he is the best horse in the world right now,? Iavarone said, ?and we?re going to prove it.?

 

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http://www.drf.com/news/article/95178.html


Triple Crown quest starts on rail
By JAY PRIVMAN

ELMONT, N.Y. - Perhaps the draw on Wednesday for the 140th Belmont Stakes on Saturday could be looked at as a metaphor for the story arc of Big Brown over the past five weeks.

Big Brown's trainer, Richard Dutrow Jr., and his ownership group were looked at as outsiders before the Kentucky Derby, in which Big Brown ended up in the far outside post, No. 20. Now that Big Brown has won the Derby and added the Preakness Stakes to stand on the doorstep of a Triple Crown, Dutrow and company have become the ultimate insiders, the focal point of everything having to do with racing.

So on Wednesday morning, the randomness of the draw had an apropos outcome when Big Brown drew the inside post for the $1 million Belmont. He will have nine rivals lined up outside him, resulting in a field of 10 - one more than expected - for the last and longest leg of the Triple Crown.

Dutrow brazenly took the outside post in the Derby, and then Big Brown drew right in the middle of the field for the Preakness. Dutrow said before the draw that he preferred an outside post for the Belmont, which encompasses one lap of Belmont Park's 1 1/2-mile main track, but said afterward he believed the inside post would not matter.

"I just can't see the post getting him beat," Dutrow said. "If he breaks good out of the 1 hole, it will be to our advantage. And if he doesn't, he has plenty of time to get out of there. There's no way a post position is going to get Big Brown beat."

"Obviously I'm going to have to jockey for position," said jockey Kent Desormeaux, who rides Big Brown. "But I'm well-mounted."

Big Brown, unbeaten in five starts, was installed as the 2-5 favorite on the morning lines set by Mike Watchmaker, Daily Racing Form's national handicapper, and Eric Donovan, the linemaker at Belmont Park. Both Donovan and Watchmaker have Casino Drive, the Peter Pan Stakes winner, the second choice at 7-2, with Denis of Cork, the third-place finisher in the Derby, next at 12-1.

Everyone else is 20-1 or higher, including the surprise late entrant Guadalcanal, who is winless in five starts. Guadalcanal most recently was second, beaten a nose, in a 1 1/2-mile turf race for maidens at Churchill Downs on May 23. He drew next to Big Brown in post 2.

The field, from the rail out, is Big Brown (Desormeaux the rider), Guadalcanal (Javier Castellano), Macho Again (Garrett Gomez), Denis of Cork (Robby Albarado), Casino Drive (Edgar Prado), Da' Tara (Alan Garcia), Tale of Ekati (Eibar Coa), Anak Nakal (Julien Leparoux), Ready's Echo (John Velazquez), and Icabad Crane (Jeremy Rose).
Tale of Ekati, who won the Wood Memorial in April, is the only horse besides Big Brown with a victory in a Grade 1 stakes race.

All 10 3-year-olds carry 126 pounds. Trainer Nick Zito has two runners in the race, Anak Nakal and Da' Tara, but they race as separate betting interests.

First prize in the Belmont is $600,000, with $200,000 to second.

"Obviously, it's a tough task at hand," said David Carroll, who trains Denis of Cork. "But we're here to win, and we're going to give it our best shot."
The Belmont is the 11th race on a 13-race card that begins at noon Eastern. Post time for the Belmont is scheduled for 6:25 p.m. It will be shown live on ABC from 5-7 p.m. The Belmont is the final leg of pick-four and pick-six wagers that both have pools guaranteed at $1 million.

Big Brown had a quiet day at Belmont Park. He worked Tuesday, so, as is his custom, he merely walked the barn's shed row the next day, in both the morning and the afternoon. Big Brown's sharpness Wednesday morning pleased Dutrow.
"He was very rough this morning, which we really liked," Dutrow said. "He is ready to run, looking for action."

The quarter crack on the inside of Big Brown's left front foot is scheduled to have patch put on it Friday afternoon, Dutrow said. Ian McKinlay, the foot specialist who has been treating Big Brown, came by Wednesday morning to check again on Big Brown. Dutrow said the foot was fine and that Big Brown was going back to the track to jog as scheduled on Thursday.

The Belmont main track was rated as sloppy for training on a gray, misty morning Wednesday. Casino Drive originally was scheduled to have his final work for the Belmont on Wednesday, but he had another unorthodox training session that did not include a workout.

After walking the stable area for an hour, Casino Drive came on the track with stablemates Champagne Squall and Spark Candle after the renovation break, at 8:50 a.m. He then proceeded to gallop slowly to the backstretch, at which point he turned around and jogged back, exiting through the tunnel to the paddock.

Nobutaka Tada, who has overseen the training of Casino Drive as the racing manager for owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto, said Casino Drive did not do more "because of the condition of the track."
"The track was bad," Tada said. "We will try" Thursday.

Kazuo Fujisawa, the Japanese trainer of Casino Drive, arrived Tuesday night and watched Casino Drive train Wednesday.
"Mr. Fujisawa said after seeing the horse that he does not need a fast work," Tada said.

Casino Drive has appeared uncomfortable when he gallops the past three days, even after walking briskly before coming on the track. Tada said Casino Drive "has always been that way."
Race-day medication, such as the diuretic Lasix, is not legal in Japan, where Casino Drive made his first start, but it is legal here. Tada said Casino Drive would not use any medication in the Belmont.

The rain Wednesday morning yielded a comfortable high temperature of 72 degrees Wednesday afternoon, but Weather.com forecast much steamier conditions by the weekend. The high temperature on Friday is predicted to be 81 degrees, with an 85-degree high on Saturday. There is a 30 percent chance of isolated thunderstorms both days.

 

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Belmont Stakes Past Performances

DRF: http://www.drf.com/tc/belmont/2008/pps/belmontstakes08.pdf

 

[TouchdownJesus]

AWESOME RACE FOR ME!

Had BB not to win triple crown, as I posted above.

I put 2 units on Macho Again and then Friday night was bored and played some casino on my site. I started winning, and every time I'd win some, I put a unit or so on another horse. I ended up having 5 out of the 9 horses, including Da'Tara.

I made over 25 units!!!