Lucky People.(The Talk of the Town)(Big Brown)

It can be disconcerting to see people go nuts over a euthanized racehorse when the world is falling to pieces and human beings are dying in droves, but a living racehorse--a thriving champion, a supercolt in his prime--is another thing, as good an excuse as any for a little hysteria and wonderment. After Big Brown won the Preakness Stakes, last month, a television reporter asked Rick Dutrow, Big Brown's trainer, about his horse, and Dutrow, near tears, said, "Anybody that has ever touched him, seen him, had anything to do with him, are the luckiest people in the world."

With this in mind, pilgrims have been contriving visits to Big Brown at Belmont, since he arrived there from Baltimore, a couple of weeks ago, and began preparing for the Belmont Stakes, which will be run on Saturday. If he wins, he will be the first Triple Crown winner in thirty years. With his magical stride, his dominating victories at the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, and the apparent correlation between Triple Crown years (1978, 1977, 1973, etc.) and periods of American disillusionment (ibid.), it would seem that he's got an excellent shot.

Big Brown, during his New York engagement, is staying at the trainer Bobby Frankel's barn near the track, in a verdant, ramshackle settlement that brings to mind an abandoned military base. Frankel, who was a friend of Dutrow's father, the late trainer Dick Dutrow, has lent Big Brown Stall 8. The barn is open to the air. Pigeons, songbirds, and squirrels scuttle about; pots of petunias and impatiens hang from the eaves. Stable-hands muck the stalls and chop carrot chunks into bowls of oats. The only sign of the presence of a star athlete is a security guard in a chair.

Last Tuesday afternoon, Dutrow stood facing Big Brown's stall, just looking at him. Dutrow, who is forty-eight and has swept-back gray hair, had on a polo shirt, cargo shorts, deck shoes, and wraparound sunglasses. Big Brown, who is three and, being a bay, is reddish-brown but black at "the points" (ears, nose, tail, etc.), had on a halter. Early that morning, he had had a good run, despite a small crack in his left-front hoof. Dutrow, looking into his eyes now, liked what he saw.

"He's a sweetheart," Dutrow said. "You gotta see what I see." What a novice could see was that, while the other horses just nibbled at the hay bales ...