BALTIMORE – Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, or the big brown running machine named Big Brown in the Preakness on Saturday?
Not the big bear named Kentucky Bear, and certainly not his trainer, Reade Baker.
“Bring him on,” the Canadian-based Baker said yesterday. “The Preakness is not a one-horse race, it’s not a walkover. I’d like to be training Big Brown, but I’m not in awe of him.”
Big Brown, the sensational winner of the Kentucky Derby and unbeaten in four starts, will be the heavily odds-on favorite to win the Preakness at Pimlico. Not one other horse in the Derby has yet committed to tackle him again, although there is a chance Gayego may try again after a shocking 17th-place finish at Churchill Downs.
That everyone wants to give Big Brown a miss does not impress Baker. “It’s the same old story,” he said. “People back in January told us there was no point running Kentucky Bear in the Kentucky Derby because we’d be up against War Pass.
“In March, they told us we shouldn’t run in the Derby because of Pyro. Now they’re telling us we should be afraid to run in the Preakness because of Big Brown.”
War Pass did not run in the Derby because of injury. Pyro made it to the gate but ran a dismal eighth.
So Baker is not intimidated by Big Brown’s Derby feat. He said, “Big Brown was the best of the horses that ran against him at Churchill Downs on that particular track on that day. He may be a superstar, but it’s giving him too much to concede it at this time.”
Some historical evidence supports that position. In 2000, Fusaichi Pegasus, big Kentucky Derby winner, hailed as a potential superstar, came to Pimlico for the Preakness, and promptly got trounced by Red Bullet.
Baker and the Bear’s owner, Danny Dion, an old Canadian lumberjack, wanted to run the colt in the Derby, but the horse did not have enough earnings to make the line-up.
He has had only three races. He won first out in a mile maiden special at Gulfstream Park in January. A month later, he went in the Fountain of Youth, but bled and finished seventh.
Next out, he had a rough trip in the Blue Grass but rattled home for third at 27-1.
“Sure, I’d like him to have had more experience, but we couldn’t race him as a two-year-old because he bucked shins,” Baker said.
“Our goal is to try to win the biggest races we can. Kentucky Bear has had only three starts in his life and if you throw out the race when he bled, he has run super both times. So why not try the Preakness?
“He’s coming off four great works. Big Brown has the form on him, but we’re going to take the chance. Who are the others in the race, anyway?
“It’s the sporting thing to do, to run. Nobody is in this business to make money. The sport is the thing.”
Baker, 61, is one of Canada’s leading trainers. Three years ago he won the Sovereign Award as Canada’s top trainer, he has won a lot of stakes races and is a member of the Jockey Club of Canada.
So he’s not coming to Pimlico as some rube from the boonies. He has a nice horse with two straight bullet workouts at five furlongs. He could be a Preakness player.