Big Brown's Shoe

Kudos to whoever caught this one, and we have a Triple Crown compromised by a starter's mental error. What was that fellow thinking being that far out on the track?

Dutrow supposed this sprung shoe flattened out when the horse walked on concrete going back to his stall, and Dutrow noticed only a "spread" shoe (whatever that means).

Be assured when Dutrow checked it that the shoe was still sprung exactly to the degree shown in the photo. When you train on a farm you become an expert on sprung shoes, and, unfortunately they never flatten out when the horse walks on them.

It is however possible, particularly in a dark stall, to look at a sprung shoe head on and fail to see the separation and think it's merely a slight anomaly. Dutrow then instructed the shoer to remove the shoe, but it seems we've yet to hear from that gentleman who might well have been considering his own rear end in keeping quiet.

How did the sprung shoe affect performance? Two considerations:
1. When sprung shoe is on the lead hind.
2. When sprung shoe is on the off hind.

I'd noted in my post of June 8, #2 BB's "Pig Like stride. BUT, I'd viewed that on the Clubhouse turn. When I rewatched the race I was questioning myself on this because BB looked fairly normal on the backstretch. Then on the final turn when Kent D. asks he comes up empty.

Here's the possible explanation. I suspect there's far less effect of a sprung shoe when the problem is on the lead hind as opposed to the off hind--i.e. in the race, on the straightway and back stretch instead of the turns. Logically the power of the lead stride would push a sprung shoe right on through the stride, whereas when the bad shoe is on the off hind there is a more perpendicular contact with the track, and a much weaker push through which might cause enough drag to unabalance the stride. Hence BB looked much worse on the turns, and probably felt much worse due to the shoe than he did in the straightaways. And when Kent D. asked him at the quarter pole and all around the final turn with Dennis of C. accelerating by, the horse was without response.

At any rate, something was obviously wrong, and Kent D. intuitively and correctly pulled the horse up.

But, also note that the sprung shoe hardly negates all the other things wrong with BB at the Belmont. I have my doubts he'd have gone on if the shoe was normal. I think the horse ran out of gas on final turn.