Mark Of A Champ

RECENT HISTORY leaves racing fans justifiably wary. Never has the sport gone so long—30 years—without a Triple Crown winner, and never has a period been more clogged with Belmont near misses than the six in eight years from 1997 through 2004. Now a gifted opponent awaits in New York, Japanese-bred Casino Drive, who has raced just twice in his life but is bred to run the 1 1/2-mile Belmont distance and won the Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont on May 10. He will be a worthy foil, rich with story lines.

Yet the seduction of Big Brown is bigger than any challenge he might face. In Baltimore he took a sport that had been confused by death and demanded that it embrace his performance. "How easy is this for me?" said Dutrow in the early evening twilight outside Pimlico. "Every race, he's amazed everybody with what he's done. Crazy, crazy, crazy horse."