Whether or not Big Brown wins the Triple Crown tomorrow, the 3-year-old colt will have an active - and lucrative - post-racing career in the breeding shed.
Never mind that he has a history of foot problems that surfaced again last week with a now famous quarter crack in his left front hoof.
Forget the admission of trainer Rick Dutrow that the colt gets a dose of the anabolic steroid Winstrol once a month, although he told The New York Times that Big Brown skipped his May dose.
And disregard the fact Big Brown's sire had an eight-race career, shortened by injury, punctuated with foot problems.
The winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness already has a syndication deal reportedly worth more than $50 million. Once he is retired from the track, he likely will command a stud fee of $100,000 for at least two years.
He has demolished his competition, winning five races by a combined 39 lengths. No horse has threatened his Triple Crown campaign. Big Brown is so enchanting that not even quarter cracks or steroids would scare off Reiley McDonald, a partner of Eaton Sales Inc. in Lexington, Ky., and a well-respected bloodstock adviser.
"What we've seen is a horse that has taken on the best of his crop of over 35,000 and beaten them all handily in spectacular style," McDonald said. "He's won the second leg, which shows some durability.
"If he can carry that over a mile and a half [in the Belmont Stakes], it does make him somewhat of a super horse. So who wouldn't want to breed to him?"
McDonald, a native of Upperco, considers a quarter crack injury "a glorified hangnail. ... To link it to a genetic weakness would be a real stretch."
Steroids are another matter.
"Winstrol once a month is pretty standard," he said. "I think the first and easiest step this business can take following the Kentucky Derby is to ban use of steroids at the racetrack. It's needed and it will have positive ramifications.
"That said, would the fact the horse has been on Winstrol [discourage him from breeding to Big Brown]? Absolutely not."
It would, however, give pause to Dr. William Solomon, a veterinarian and breeder who owns Pin Oak Lane Farm near New Freedom, Pa.
"The use of anabolic steroids [in horses] isn't that much different than it is in [human] athletes," Solomon said. "It's something that should be a concern and something that should stop."
