LOUISVILLE, Ky.-- --The pre-race buzz all seems to surround the aptly named Big Brown. The hype has infected everyone, even Churchill Downs' oddsmaker, Mike Battaglia, who essentially admitted that despite the horse's lousy post position, the confidence and bluster from his camp boosted the morning-line odds.
Here's what I keep thinking about, though: The brash entourage that surrounds Big Brown's barn didn't know what they had. It wasn't until relatively recently they realized a winning lottery ticket might've blown into their stable.
Over in Barn 41 at Churchill Downs, Eoin Harty knew he had a Kentucky Derby horse the second he laid eyes on Colonel John. That was never in question, and many still expect Colonel John to be one of the first across the finish line.
But what's making bettors and horsemen alike scratch their heads is the surface Colonel John has been racing on. The dirt-vs.-synthetic track debate has intensified, splitting the racing community and turning tomorrow's Derby -- and this year's entire Triple Crown series -- into an interesting test case.
"It's a process we're all kind of learning as we go along," says trainer Todd Pletcher, whose two Derby entrants, Monba and Cowboy Cal, earned their way here on synthetic tracks. "And what we're finding is that there's a lot that we don't know about it.'"
With more horses boasting synthetic-track wins on their prep-race resumes, tomorrow's 20-horse showdown could go a long way toward supporting or debunking theories surrounding the debate.
While tracks in Maryland, New York and Florida still boast traditional dirt surfaces, others -- Arlington Park, Keeneland and recently Santa Anita -- have switched to a synthetic surface, essentially a mixture of silica sand, synthetic fibers, elastic fiber and granulated rubber. (Such a surface has also been installed on a training track at Fair Hill Training Center near Elkton.)
The softer track is intended to provide more cushion for horse and jockey. But listening to some trainers, you'd think their horseshoes had been replaced with roller skates. Nothing about the surface feels right, they say. Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito decried it as "made from my attic," comparing the texture to fluffy insulation. And Big Brown's trainer, Rick Dutrow, says the synthetic track might be better for horses' bones, but he's not certain about their ligaments.
