Facts about Big Brown

Big Brown is 18 years old
Born: April 10, 2005
Birthplace: Kentucky, United States
Best known as: Winner of the 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness

     

Big Brown Biography

Big Brown is the racehorse who won the first two legs of racing’s Triple Crown in 2008. He won the Kentucky Derby by 4 3/4 lengths on 3 May 2008.

His performance there was so powerful that he was a 1-5 favorite at the Preakness on 17 May 2008, which he won by 5 1/4 lengths. At that point Big Brown was still unbeaten, though he had raced only three times before the Derby: he won his maiden race at Saratoga on 3 September 2007, then won twice in two races at Gulfstream Park in Florida in March of 2008.

His co-owners, IEAH Stables, announced before the Preakness that Big Brown would not race as a four-year-old and instead would be put to stud at Three Chimneys Farm in Kentucky.

He went on to the Belmont Stakes on 7 June 2008, hoping to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. He finished dead last as Da’ Tara, a 38-1 long shot, won the race.

Big Brown was scheduled to run the Breeders’ Cup Classic in late October, but injured his right front foot during a workout at Aqueduct Race Course in New York and was retired two weeks before the race. He became an important sire.

Extra credit

The name Big Brown comes from the nickname of the United Parcel Service; the shipping company was a client of one of the horse’s owners, Paul Pompa, Jr… The last horse to win the Triple Crown was Affirmed in 1978. Seattle Slew (1977) and Secretariat (1973) also won the prize in the 1970s, but there were no Triple Crown winners in the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s or 1990s… Funny Cide (in 2003) and Smarty Jones (in 2004) both won the first two legs of the Triple Crown but got beat in the Belmont Stakes… Big Brown is the son of the sire Boundary and the dam Mien.


     

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