The Big Brown Bear

The Horse Racing community has been stricken with it's latest case of Kentucky Derby Fever, the Case Study this week is "Big Brown".

With a dominating Allowance win last week, and impressive speed figure.  Big Brown is now headed to the Florida Derby where he will pick up a lot of support at the windows.

Let's take a look at some of the long odds that Big Brown faces as he first attempts to straight from maiden or allowance race to a Grade I stakes race.

Here are the last 20 horses to have gone directly from a maiden or allowance win to a Grade 1 race.  Keep in mind, they may have taken multiple races to break the maiden or go through that allowance condition.

Horse First Grade I Finish

Nobiz Like shobiz 2ns

Liquidity 9th

Deputh Glittlers 6th

Giacomo 2nd

Noble Causeway 2nd

Sun King 3rd

Read the Footnotes 6th

Birdstone 4th

St Averil 2nd

Action this Day 1st Breeders Cup Juvenile

Blue Burner 3rd

Saarland 4th

Monarchos 1st Florida Derby

Invisible Ink 3rd

A P Valentine 1st Champagne

Millenium Wind 2nd

Lemon Drop Kid 1st

Adonis 6th

Artax 2nd

Indian Charlie 1st Santa Anita Derby.

So from 20 starters we have 5 winners.  But for Big Brown we have to compare him to 3 year olds who made their first start from a maiden or allowance race to a Grade 1.

Of those 20 starters, 6 horses tired a Grade I at 3 years old.  Monarchos and Indian Charlie were the winners.  Monarchos won the Derby, Indian Charlie finished 3rd with very light past performances, actually quite similar to Big Brown if you look at them.

The Big Brown Bear is a very interesting horse.  A few of the positives are a high speed figure, and very high for this class.  Both of his races have been routes.  He has also won both his races by large margins, which is a sign of class.   Many past horses demonstrated the ability to dominate early on in their careers.

The negatives for Big Brown are that they have already acknowledge the foot issues.  He has a very speedy pedigree.  The first son of Boundry I see go 10 furlongs will be the first.  Also the allowance race was scheduled for the turf and half the field scratched, so he beat turf horses on the dirt.

The Florida Derby is shaping up as a large field.  It will also be many horses like Big Brown and Hey Bryn's only chance to get graded earnings.  The margin for error is very small when you get to March with no graded earnings.  Big Bear does have some trackable speed and may pose the first real speed threat to develop this spring.

Prognosis.   Take two aspirin and come back on March 29th and see how Big Brown does.