Death becomes Pimlico

BALTIMORE — A horde of photographers and reporters basked in the warm morning sun on the backstretch at Pimlico yesterday, waiting to get a good look at something big and brown.

The birds were singing. A cool breeze was blowing. It was one of those glorious moments in horse racing when it all seems so romantic and cool.

Then a track worker saw someone walk by with a service dog.

“We need more dogs around here,” he told me. “Jack Russell terriers, though. They’re the best at running down the rats. We’ve got rats back here bigger than some of the horses. Faster, too.”

The contrast was an appropriate one for the sport of kings these days when the debate about horse racing is not over who will win the next Triple Crown but over how many horses must die on television before people notice the rats among the birds.

Tomorrow’s Preakness will be as much about cruelty as crowns. It is a supernova of death in the industry. Pimlico is where Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, the last super horse, broke down in front of the grandstand shortly after the start of the race two years ago. Barbaro later died as a result of his injuries. Now the Preakness follows the death of Eight Belles at the end of the Derby two weeks ago.

Rick Dutrow Jr., the trainer of Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown, already was calling for prayer after yesterday’s workout.

Asked about the condition of the track, Dutrow said, “I would like a nice, safe track when the horse runs. When you go running on these hard tracks, it takes its toll on horses. So I am really praying for a nice, safe, fast track. That is what I am praying for.”

Pimlico, then, will be one very big and very wild church tomorrow, with more than 100,000 people in various states of consciousness on hand, praying for a nice, safe track. Another tragedy live on network television and we may be watching the rats race in the future.

NBC will window dress tomorrow’s Preakness telecast with a roundtable discussion led by Mr. Roundtable himself, Bob Costas, about the death of Eight Belles and the challenges facing the horse racing industry. Buzz Bissinger is not part of the panel, which is disappointing. After seeing how worked up he got about blogs, imagine how mad he would get about horses dying. We’ve seen horse whisperers — Buzz could have been the first horse screamer.

Much of the debate about safety has been over track surface. Some industry officials see synthetic tracks as a way to reduce the chances of another Barbaro or Eight Belles incident. Pimlico is dirt.

Dutrow said he was happy with the condition of the track after Big Brown’s workout.

“The way I saw the track this morning, it seemed to have a nice cushion to it,” he said. “You couldn’t hear the horses galloping past you.”

That seems hard to believe. I think you could hear Big Brown galloping in Rockville. He is very, very big.

Tres Borrachos, one of the 12 other challengers in tomorrow’s race, looked like a pony when he came out for his workout following Big Brown’s trip to the track. In fact, Tres Borrachos went out for his workout and came back before Big Brown was done.

Tres Borrachos trainer Beau Greely characterized the workout as a light session.

“He just jogged today,” said Greely of the field’s lone gelding. “He was on his toes and feeling fresh. He’d have done a lot more had we let him. He’ll gallop tomorrow and just walk into the race.”

I think he got a look at Big Brown and said, “Me race him? Are you kidding?”

Big Brown is an overwhelming 1-2 favorite to win the second leg of the Triple Crown, and, if successful, go on to the Belmont Stakes to try to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.

The quest for racing’s Triple Crown has become the equivalent of Teddy winning the Presidents Race at Washington Nationals games. From 2002 to 2004, three horses — War Emblem, Funny Cide and Smarty Jones — won the Derby and the Preakness only to lose the Belmont.

“I would hope [a Triple Crown] would do a lot for the game,” Dutrow said. “There hasn’t been one for such a long time. There have been a lot of horses who have been close to it. I can tell you what it would do for my game. I’ll move way up. I hope he does win the Triple Crown. I hope it does help the game. Any little bit can help, and we seem to be needing help in different areas here.”

Like catching rats and keeping horses alive.