Big Brown sullied by his team

With yet another horse on the brink of winning the Triple Crown, the connections of the last thoroughbred to do it -- the magnificent Affirmed, in 1978 -- reminisced about his memorable duel with Alydar. John Veitch, Alydar's trainer, suggested that the Crown that year was enhanced by the sportsmanship of the people involved.

They included Laz Barrera, Affirmed's trainer, the consummate horseman. Teen phenomenon Steve Cauthen, the colt's rider. Owners Calumet Farm and Louis and Patrice Wolfson, gracious and respectful of each other and of their beloved sport. "Both teams were just the best that ever has happened for the game," Veitch said. "There are situations where you have noble horses that run their hearts out, and the individuals, the humans connected with them, do not respond in an equal manner."

Which brings us to Saturday's Belmont Stakes. Veitch, still a man of manners, didn't name names. But he very well might have been talking about the unsavory crowd running with Big Brown, who will do nothing to burnish the public image of racing should the colt become the 12th to win the Triple Crown.

Start with trainer Rick Dutrow, whose lack of respect for his sport shows in the 70 fines and suspensions listed on his 33-page rap sheet with the Association of Racing Commissioners International. Most are for violations of equine medication rules, including a $300 fine levied at Canterbury Park for his failure to list all drugs administered to a horse that ran in the 2006 Claiming Crown.

Dutrow also has been suspended and fined numerous times for his own drug violations, including marijuana possession at tracks. He has been punished for lying on his license applications, passing bad checks, concealing horses' workouts and, in a racetrack version of the Whizzinator, attempting to provide a false urine sample with "an apparatus concealed on his person."

Before Big Brown took the Derby, Dutrow's crass blustering about his horse's invincibility seemed merely annoying. It has now crossed the line to insufferable.

He has repeatedly dismissed Casino Drive, a half-sibling to two Belmont winners, as having "no chance" to upset his colt Saturday. He called Big Brown's Triple Crown coronation a "foregone conclusion."

Amazingly, the trainer also said on national television that he gives Big Brown -- and all the horses in his care -- a shot of the steroid Winstrol once a month.

That's not illegal in the states where the colt has raced. But what does it say about Dutrow's horsemanship when he admits he doesn't know what Winstrol does, but he just "likes giving it"? And what does his disregard for rules and decorum say to a public fed up with sportsmen who are less than sportsmanlike?

The national controversy about steroids widened to equine athletes earlier this year.

Racing executives are working to limit their use nationwide to therapeutic purposes only, and Dutrow's cavalier attitude could taint his horse's accomplishments in the court of public opinion. Racing already is battling to reassure fans shaken by the deaths of Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby and Barbaro's mortal injury in the 2006 Preakness.

A Triple Crown winner lumped in with the likes of Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire is not going to help.

A Triple Crown champion has long been viewed as the magic potion that would revive the sport. In recent years, fans have flocked to Smarty Jones, who was surrounded by a humble and folksy human posse; Funny Cide, whose middle-class owners rode in on an old school bus; and Afleet Alex, who raised money for a childhood cancer charity.

But their charming stories separated them from other talented horses.

Such appeal is wholly lacking in Dutrow and IEAH, the consortium that owns a majority of Big Brown. Their endorsement deal with UPS and a quick sale of the horse's breeding rights for $50 million shows they are more interested in generating money than in generating new fans for the sport. Straight cash, horsey.

Racing does have a way of humbling the prideful, and the Belmont has trumped many a Triple Crown favorite. Spectacular Bid stepped on a pin in his stall the morning of the race. Charismatic broke a leg in the homestretch. War Emblem stumbled out of the gate.

Perhaps Big Brown will navigate the minefield of bad karma his connections have strewn. Should he take the Crown, one thing is certain: he will accept it silently, and with dignity. Too bad the same can't be said of his entourage.

Rachel Blount • rblount@startribune.com