Reply #5: Permanently?

[Awsi Dooger]

You're nuts. It would flame the kooks in the Lounge. But even if every horse in the Belmont broke down and no horse finished the race, it wouldn't be a permanent stain. A few years of heavy scrutiny, and held breaths in major races. Then day to day normalcy intrudes and the over reactive types who scream permanent are miffed to the point they subconsciously root for another tragedy, so they can be outraged again.

Anyway, whenever you hear summations like better than ever after an injury it's like athletes who are trying to talk themselves into it. Then a year later they concede they came back too soon. Big Brown won't be at his best in a situation like this, probably laboring in the stretch if there's any type of moderate early pace, but that doesn't necessarily mean Casino Drive or anyone else can run him down.