BIG BROWN'S BELMONT MISFORTUNE RECALLED AS DAMIAN BROWNE APPEALS HIS VERDICT AND PENALTY

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, July 3, 2018

“My entire ride was predicated by the start … I didn’t know what the problem was … the horse was not lame or sore, but there was something amiss … I thought it was in this horse’s best interests to just get him back to the barn and recharge his batteries … my response to the scepticism about my ride is that those people weren’t in the saddle … when all of the scepticism was coming out all I could do was sit here and say, ‘you weren’t in the saddle!”

Do you know who said that and under what circumstances?

No, this was not Damian Browne’s response to the handling inquiry into his ride on Fighting Teo in an ordinary Class 1 Handicap at the Sunshine Coast on June 1.

It could have been … but no, those words were spoken by jockey Kent Desormeaux back in 2008 explaining his sensational decision to pull his mount Big Brown, the overwhelming 3-10 favourite, out of the Belmont Stakes at the top of the home straight in front of 94 476 racing enthusiasts, most of whom had come to the track to see the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner become the first horse in thirty years to win the Triple Crown.

The horse was not lame or sore, but there was something amiss … I thought it was in this horse’s best interests to just get him back to the barn and recharge his batteries.”

As it turned out Big Brown passed several vet checks on that day and over the next couple of days. No veterinary team … and there was a good few having a go … could find anything wrong with the horse.

So, that mystery remains with more than a little touch of controversy. Desormeaux maintains Big Brown had nothing left to give … that he was running on empty … that something was not right.

Critics say that after an ungenerous, confusing early passage in which they contend that Desormeaux was simply outridden, Big Brown was simply left struggling out of his comfort zone, that the Hall Of Fame rider knew he couldn’t win and that his mental strength simply imploded in the most astounding way.

“My response to the scepticism about my ride is that those people weren’t in the saddle … when all of the scepticism was coming out all I could do was sit here and say, ‘you weren’t in the saddle!”

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The bottom line of that argument … one that cannot be changed … is that Desormeaux made a judgement call that day which, in theory, given his vast experience, he was more than qualified to do.

For racing authorities charged with policing the outcome in that circumstance it came down to the question of whether they believed the jockey or not?

Was the absence of hard evidence to support Desormeaux’s claim that something was amiss enough to call him a liar for the actions he took in one of racing’s biggest races in front of a huge worldwide audience … or was there a benefit of doubt factor in play that sided with Desormeaux?

Big Brown’s trainer Rick Dutrow Jr didn’t like what he had seen. He criticised Desormeaux saying, “I'm sure he didn't have any idea what the hell was going on going into the first turn the way he was switching him all over the damn track. I don't know what he was doing."

Regarding the horse being pulled out of the race Dutrow Jr commented, "I don't know what happened. I don't know why he had to do that."

But it didn’t take long for everybody to move on.

Just two weeks after the Belmont fiasco Big Brown team was back in a Group 1 winner’s enclosure after securing a victory in the Haskell Invitational.

Kent Desormeaux had ultimately been believed. He kept the ride!

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It is a long way from Belmont to Corbould Park and it is drawing a long bow to compare the incident in the 2008 Triple Crown finale and a race at a low-key Friday meeting at the Sunshine Coast on the first day of June in 2018.

Or is it?

Scrutinising the actions of two jockeys has nothing to do with the size of the crowd or the status of the race.

Both riders, Kent Desormeaux and Damian Browne, thought that all was not right with their respective mounts and both chose to protect their horses … to look after them … which is an integral part of their duty of care – yet Damian Browne was called in to face a running and handling inquiry, was then formally charged, found guilty and received a two month suspension.

In Browne’s case the rider was concerned about the awkward action of Fighting Teo from the moment the horse left the gates. Before the race stewards had been informed of a proposed change of tactics with their report stating, ‘Change of tactics. Connections advised the gelding would be ridden more forward from the wide barrier.’

Once Fighting Teo hit the stall on jumping away and Browne became concerned about his horse the option to race forward went out of the window. The horse got back, raced wide for a part, was never in contention and Browne has stated that at no stage did he feel comfortable enough to increase the pressure on his mount to do more.

You could say, in the words of Kent Desormeaux, that Browne’s entire ride, to some degree at least, ‘was predicated by the start’ and that Browne ‘thought it was in this horse’s best interests to just get him back to the barn and recharge his batteries.’

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Browne has no doubt he took the correct course of action.

“He hit the barrier really hard on the right-hand side when he came out of the stalls,” said Browne, “and then down the back straight he was hanging, wanting to run out … and he just felt awful.

“You could see me, especially on the steward’s footage, looking down behind to see if there was something there. He had an awkward action. He had hit himself pretty hard and seemed to have lost his action and I thought something was wrong.

“We had told stewards the intention was to go forward from the wide barrier. That seems to be what a lot of people were blowing up about initially, but the stewards did accept that there was no way I could do that because of what happened at the start.”

Interestingly enough, and perhaps pertinent to Browne’s argument, three runs earlier the Fighting Teo story followed a similar theme.

An extract from the steward’s report for the run at the Sunshine Coast on October 29, 2017 reads: ‘Stewards Advice. Post Race J. Orman reported that his mount was awkward in its action, particularly over the final 500m, and raced very greenly.’

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“I put my case forward at the reconvened inquiry,” continued Browne. “I pretty much reiterated what I had said prior with regard to the what I felt about the horse’s action.

"At the end of the day I’d rather be wrong and be safe and I’m very happy that the horse was fine afterwards.

“But I know what I felt in the ride and if there had been something wrong and I’d forced the issue and pushed the horse out, who knows what could have happened next?

“They said that the horse was vetted after the race and appeared to be fine. After the race they do that at a walk or a trot, not under race conditions. How much can you read into that?”

“And I’ve heard people say, oh the horse came out and won at its next start. (Just as Big Brown had done). That was two weeks later! A totally different time and place.

“Even in the short-term things can change very quickly.

Look what happened at Caloundra on Saturday. A horse looked to have broken down in the preliminary. They even brought the screens out but a few minutes later the horse was vetted and suddenly there was nothing wrong. I’m not saying that was a similar scenario but it shows you how quickly things can change with regard to a horse’s well-being.

A steward’s report extract from the race referenced by Browne reads: ‘During the preliminary, rider M. Du Plessis believed that Uthred may have broken down after it had blundered and would not weight-bear on its off foreleg. Uthred was then declared a late scratching. A post-race examination of the horse by the veterinary surgeon revealed no significant abnormalities.’

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The two month suspension came as an absolute body-blow to Browne, a seasoned rider being punished for what he believed to be doing the right thing.

Last Wednesday, when approached soon after the penalty had been handed down, Browne declined to comment, but the firm set of his jaw and the steam coming out of his ears showed there was plenty he would have liked to have said.

A week later, having put in an appeal against both the finding and the penalty, Browne summed up the on-going hurt.

“The thing that frustrates me more than anything else is not the time … whether it was two weeks or two months … it was the fact that my evidence was rejected meaning that, in my mind, they more or less have called me a liar or a cheat. That’s what hurts the most.

“I haven’t worked my butt off for thirty years to be nearing the end of my career and to find myself in this position. It’s been a terrible time for me and my family.

“I’m obviously appealing both the finding and the penalty so it is not over yet!

“Even when I won the Caloundra Cup on Saturday all of the emotions of the past few days got the better of me and I couldn’t go out there for the trophy presentation in that moment because of the state of mind I was in.

“It’s been a really tough week,” concluded Browne.

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What did Fighting Teo’s trainer Kevin Kemp think of Browne’s ride?

“Damian was concerned when he came back off the horse that day that the horse didn’t feel right,” said Kemp. “To me that’s not a good thing so I had the horse vet checked the next day and then I had him vet checked the next day as well.

“We then galloped him. If the jockey was happy with him we let him go three-quarter pace on the Tuesday. The jockey (Nozi Tomizawa) came back and said the horse felt normal to him but he said … and I think every jockey who has ever ridden him has said … he is not the greatest horse to ride. Certainly not the smoothest horse to ride.

“He has featured in some steward’s reports saying he has done this or that or the other.

“I was just really worried about the horse when I saw what was happening in the race. I was worried that there was something really badly wrong with the horse.

"When he got back in I was very pleased to see that he hadn’t bled … number one. Damian said he thought something was amiss. Then, when when we trotted him up and down he was ok there so I was more relieved than anything else.

“When you watch it on the steward’s vision he really crashed into the barriers at the start and, right away, that put paid to our plan to go forward and that incident could easily have put the seed of doubt in any jockey’s mind as to whether the horse was ok.

“I really didn’t know what was happening for the rest of the run, but, if a jockey doesn’t feel like a horse is right, he’s not going to ride him out is he? There are safety issues involved.

“Whatever the reason behind the run, it wasn’t a good day for any of us but I’m just happy to have my horse back safe and sound.”

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Big Brown and Fighting Teo … who’d ever thought they’d be mentioned in the same breath!

Two horses racing in hugely different events … in vastly different circumstances on different continents under different racing jurisdictions … a decade apart.

On the big stage at Belmont Kent Desormeaux pulled Big Brown out of the race because he felt that something was amiss and he was free to ride the champion again to a Group 1 victory two weeks later.

At the Sunshine Coast Damian Browne does not ride Fighting Teo out for the same reason … yet he receives a two month suspension.

Racing authorities like to trumpet two points of priority … animal welfare and integrity … both of which were huge points of focus in the Big Brown and Fighting Teo inquiries which produced significantly different outcomes for the two riders.

I don’t pretend to know the fine intricacies of race riding or what sixth sense an experienced jockey has that comes into play when he or she senses something is wrong … but I do know that shortcoming applies to most race observers, including some stewards.

Like the jockeys involved, the stewards have to make a judgement call on a case by case basis. Some calls are more difficult to make than others, particularly when its puts a rider’s reputation on the line with possible damaging consequences.

Suffice to say, Browne’s appeal process, in which he will try to clear his name, will be watched with a keen interest.

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