I just now googled "Big Brown loses Belmont" and the top hit was this article reported as being from five hours ago. Though wisely titled "Nothing's for sure at Belmont Stakes," it still says, "It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which Big Brown loses today's Belmont Stakes."
Well, he managed. Thoroughly, in fact. He didn't just lose. He completely collapsed.
I hope his jockey and trainer are aware of the wise words of Charles Baudelaire on genius: "Just as the successes of genius are greater than those of other men, so the failures of genius are greater than the failures of other men."
That's a paraphrase, but the idea is clear: when you've got a genius on your hands, you're in for the full ride. Smooth, consistent, predictable success is actually a danger sign of mediocrity. Well, not mediocrity, but...competence, with all its gifts but all its limits as well.
But when there are stunning highs and equally stunning lows, when there are inexplicable blocks and difficulties, when there are riddles of fate, when there are failures greater than the failures of other men, then you just might have a genius on your hands.
Big Brown, in my eyes, proved his greatness today by losing the Belmont every bit as spectacularly and indeed mysteriously as he won the Derby and Preakness.
That mercurial quality--that's the stuff of greatness.
It cuts both ways. It has to. Otherwise it wouldn't be what it is.
Big Brown's connections (his people) shouldn't feel bad. They've got a great horse there. They really do. It's just that that's not the sweetness and light they seemed to feel it should be. They've suffered. They forgot, I'm afraid, that Big Brown has to suffer too.
