By Alex Waldrop, NTRA.com

Like many of you, I watched Saturday’s Kentucky Derby and was in awe of the amazing performance of Big Brown and his talented jockey, Kent Desormeaux. Big Brown ran a race from the 20th post position that was remarkable. And Desormeaux rode a race that even I could appreciate as very skillful. Unfortunately for racing, events unfolded after the race that completely overshadowed Big Brown’s impressive performance.

Eight Belles, a beautiful gray filly trained by Larry Jones, was galloping out after her imposing second-place finish when something went terribly wrong and she collapsed on the track after fracturing bones in both front legs. Those of us in the stands at Churchill Downs were left wondering what had happened since she went down almost at the 7/8ths pole near the backstretch far away from the grandstand. Our only indication of trouble was the sight of one human ambulance and two horse ambulances making their way to the other side of the track. It clearly did not look good.

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That's horse trainer Richard Dutrow Jr.'s stable-speak, his way of telling friends he expects his colt Big Brown to win the 134th Kentucky Derby on Saturday.

For Big Brown, undefeated but having raced only three times, the Derby (4 p.m. ET, NBC; post time 6:04) is a chance to validate the hype that has made such an inexperienced colt the favorite among oddsmakers to win the most prestigious event in American horse racing.

For Dutrow, 48, the Derby is all that and much more: a potential validation of an unlikely resurgence, in work and in life.

A decade ago Dutrow was at rock bottom, living in Barn 1 at New York's Aqueduct Racetrack and struggling to catch on as a trainer after a tragedy and a series of missteps. His girlfriend had been murdered in a Schenectady, N.Y., home while their toddler daughter was nearby. He had problems with drugs. And his father - a highly regarded Maryland horse trainer who would die of pancreatic cancer in 1999 - had disowned Dutrow, dismayed at the hard-partying son's inability to make something of himself.

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