Sweet Spot May Be Big Brown's Key

White dot may hold answer to amazing colt's victories
By Doug Sweeney,  Newser Staff
Posted May 22, 2008 12:08 PM CDT
Sweet Spot May Be Big Brown's Key
Kent Desormeaux looks back to check on the field as he takes Big Brown down the stretch before winning the Preakness Stakes horse race at Pimlico Race Course, Saturday, May 17, 2008, in Baltimore.    (AP Photo/Jim Dietz)

There is something unique about Big Brown, and it’s not just his decimation of the fields at the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. It's a silver-dollar sized white spot at the top of his left front leg. “Some good horses have something about them that's totally different from other horses. … It’s their X factor," the Irish-born trainer who broke Big Brown as a yearling tells Sports Illustrated.

Big Brown was not highly-acclaimed when he was born, and passed through several different hands until he startled his trainers late in 2007 with some remarkable workout times. Now the colt sits a Belmont victory away from racing immortality. "You believe," says the Irishman, "that the spot was placed there by the hand of God." (More horse racing stories.)

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