Is that typical, everyone loves a winner but they fade from glory when they lose.
Sometimes no one even recognizes past accomplishments.My best friends ex is a horse trainer that works the polo circuit. He had told her a few days before that BB was not going to win, his condition could be as bothersome as a bad hangnail and I don't know about what anyone else thinks but what an annoyance that can be.
Also a horse is often reshoed after each time he races, so it had to have been discovered right after the Belmont. Or it was a slight crack that turned into a worse one.
The trainer most likely knew he might have trouble with it, that's why they did that fill in procedure days before, but normally a horse is not ridden in that condition (his was a pretty bad crack)when it first appears. But there was a lot at stake, lots and lots of money. Thank goodness the jockey sensed right away something was definetly wrong. Not sure if Big Brown will ever run again.
I thought about how this falls in relation to another discussion going on about whether a player should play when he doesn't feel right. I might think that Big Brown didn't feel well, but he had no voice to speak up.
Talk to your players when they are young regarding not hiding any injury that may bother them. Let your young players rest and recover. Seek medical advice asap, if something seems out of the ordinary. There may not seem to be as much at stake as there was for Big Brown, but it's a good story to relate that no race is worth running injured if one should risk their future.
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