School Is In Session

I headed over to the paddock before the 3rd race here at Churchill today because a few Derby horses were going to be schooling in preparation for the flurry of paddock activity on Saturday. And two horses that I may very well be using made appearances.

First on the scene was Visionaire. He seemed calm, and the hoards of fans didn’t seem to faze him one bit. As I have written before, I leave the appearance analysis to Jill Byrne and company. But Visionaire looked pretty relaxed to me.

And then the big horse made his entry. Big Brown was easy to spot, because of the white dot near his left shoulder, and because of the dozens of photographers who followed his every step. Trainer Rick Dutrow watched from among the press, and at one point, he turned to me and asked “Boy, he looks good, doesn’t he?” Instead of saying “Well, Mr. Dutrow, I can barely tell a Grade I winner from a $10k claimer, but I hear Big Brown looks pretty good, sir,” I simply nodded my head in agreement, and took another picture.

Adriano also schooled. I didn’t get a picture of him. But I DID manage to snap a shot of some of the NBC broadcast team, who apparently were there to see Big Brown.