Big Brown dominated the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes and will bid for racing's Triple Crown at Belmont Park on Saturday, June 7.

     Big Brown remained perfect in his career when a 5 ¼-length winner of the Grade 1, $1 million Preakness Stakes at Pimlico on Saturday, May 17, an effort which was one of the more dominant performances at a top-class level in recent memory.

Watch the Preakness Stakes

     Big Brown, owned by IEAH Stables and others and trained by Richard Dutrow Jr., will now be pointed for the Grade 1, $1 million Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 7. As the Derby and Preakness winner, he will try and become racing's first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. Entries for the Belmont Stakes, once around the Belmont Park oval at 1 ½ miles on the main track, will be taken three days prior to the race.
     “I know we have horse left,” Dutrow told the Daily Racing Form following the race. “There's no question. Kent never hit him with the stick, from what I could see. Kent maybe asked him for a sixteenth of a mile to put the race away, and then he glided to the wire. I'm under the impression he's going to be awful tough to beat in the Belmont.”
     In the Preakness, Big Brown, under jockey Kent Desormeaux, broke fifth from post position 6 and raced in eager fashion early but with his rider able to rate him comfortably in third as Gayego set the pace (23.59, 46.81, 1:10.48) with Riley Tucker in pursuit. Desormeaux had to wait with his mount a couple of times in the early stages as he raced along the inside, with Riley Tucker to his outside. Down the backstretch, Riley Tucker moved up to challenge outside of Gayego and Desormeaux then sent his mount outside to tackle the leaders. Big Brown put in a very strong wide run around the turn to blow past his rivals, led comfortably in the stretch after a mile in 1:35.72, and cruised under the wire geared down by Desormeaux. Macho Again finished second, a half-length in front of third-place finisher Icabad Crane. Gayego and Riley Tucker both faded badly to finish 11th and 12th, respectively.
     Big Brown completed the 1 3/16-mile distance in 1:54.80 over a fast dirt track and received a 100 Beyer Speed Figure.
     Desormeaux, at post-race press conference when asked how much he needed to ask Big Brown for run, “In the last corner I looked back under my arms one more time before I asked him to run to see where everybody was, and I had seen -- what I saw was everyone had gotten their horses running and they had looped up to the flight in front of them and they were all having to check their horses to slow them down. So I thought this is a perfect opportunity to, while they're slowing their mounts down, to separate from them.
     “And it felt like deja vu to the Kentucky Derby.  It almost looked like a replay of the Kentucky Derby.  I cornered with a can the horse a half length in front of me.  I kissed.  I kissed at him.  I tapped him on the shoulder.  He just took off.  He's got some turn of foot.
     “I don't know.  I guess -- I guess I was knuckling on him, elbows and whatnot, for about a hundred yards, and then I looked between my legs and there were eight behind me.  I stopped pushing.  I said that's enough.  (Laughter).  Then I looked one more time I think at the 16 pole, and I think they had maintained an eight-length separation.  And I started slowing him down and watching TV, make sure nothing went crazy.”
     The Equibase chart for the race read, “Big Brown was taken in hand along the inside nearing the first turn, brushed with Riley Tucker approaching the backstretch, was wrangled back and angled five wide leaving the three quarter pole, stalked the leaders under confident handling while continuing wide, lodged a bid mid way on the final turn, charged to the front in upper stretch, moved clear under urging nearing the eighth pole then was taken in hand through the final sixteenth.” He paid $2.40 to win as the heavy favorite in the betting.
     Big Brown, a colt by Boundary – Mien, by Nureyev, has now won his five lifetime starts by an average win margin of 7.8 lengths. His lifetime purse earnings stand at $2,714,500, with the $600,000 grossed from the Preakness.
     Runners owned either wholly or in part by IEAH Stables own a record of 22-13-11 from 83 starts this year, with $5,351,341 in purses.
     The Preakness, open to 3-year-olds, lost one with the scratch of Behindatthebar and 12 went to the post.