Big Brown gets in workout
Kentucky Derby champion Big Brown returned to the track at Churchill Downs on Wednesday, four days after his 4 3/4-length win in the Run for the Roses.
Trainer Rick Dutrow watched from the rail as Big Brown walked a lap around the track with exercise rider Michele Nevin. Dutrow said the 3-year-old colt has shown no ill effects from the Derby, in which Big Brown became the first horse in nearly 80 years to win from the No. 20 post.
The two-week turnaround for the May 17 Preakness Stakes remains the trainer’s main concern.
“Coming back in two weeks, he is stacked up against it,” Dutrow said. “He’s not a robot. He has run fast races and fast numbers and two weeks is not ideal timing. You need time to regroup, and we haven’t got that kind of time. I just have to hope that he stays good. ”
Big Brown will spend the next week galloping each morning before shipping to Pimlico for the Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown.
Dutrow said he’s considering putting his colt through a “minor” workout before the Preakness much like the three-furlong work he put in on the Thursday before the Derby.
“He’s just a good horse and he does things so easy,” Dutrow said.
