by Frank Angst

Outside of Big Brown’s stall in Barn 2 on the Belmont Park backstretch is a handmade get-well card from a young girl.

The card reads in purple and blue crayon, “Dear Big Brown, I heard you were feeling down. Get better soon, win the Triple Crown.” The card includes a drawing of Big Brown with a colorful bandage on his left front foot. The well wishes are from Lucy, who attends Anna House child-care center on the Belmont backstretch.

Lucy is just one of many fans keeping tabs on Big Brown, who developed a quarter crack in his left front foot less than a week after his Preakness Stakes (G1) win. With a win in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, Big Brown would become America’s 12th Triple Crown winner.

On Monday morning, foot specialist Ian McKinlay said the crack is healing, and that healing has allowed him to push back removing the stainless steel wires that pull the crack together and patching the foot until Friday morning. McKinlay said he is so confident that things are progressing well that he will not even be at Belmont Park on Tuesday when Big Brown breezes five furlongs.

“It’s a slight, slight crack. We’re being as cautious as possible because this horse is going for the Triple Crown,” McKinlay said, before noting that the foot is withstanding gallops. “The foot is cold.”

Originally, the connections of Big Brown discussed removing the wires and applying an acrylic and fiberglass patch before the horse breezed on Monday or Tuesday. McKinlay said because the crack is healing, he no longer believes there is any hurry to apply the patch.

Big Brown will work with the wires in his foot on Tuesday morning, which McKinlay said would not be a problem. He and trainer Rick Dutrow said no further treatments are needed before the breeze.

“We’ve raced many horses that were laced up,” McKinlay noted. “As far as the foot goes, I don’t even think it’s an issue.”

Big Brown has battled quarter cracks in both front feet throughout his short career. He first developed a quarter crack on his inner right foot and McKinlay treated that crack with the wire lacing. The same problem developed in his left foot while in Florida and specialist Tom Curl treated that injury with the same procedure.

McKinlay has noted that those initial cracks, could actually be called hoof-wall separations because the wall separates from the laminae. When the current crack developed after a May 23 gallop at Belmont, McKinlay said it was more of a standard quarter crack, minor compared to the previous two.

McKinlay said putting the patch in place before Tuesday’s workout potentially could have created a problem of pulling the outside together at a time when the inside of the crack is still healing. He said that can sometimes lead to an aggravation about 72 hours after the patch is applied. By pushing back the patching until Friday, they hope to avoid that problem.

“It’s good because we have time,” McKinlay said. “The longer we wait; the better for him.”

The plan is for Big Brown to continue to wear his padded glue-on Yasha shoes for the workout and in the race.

Dutrow said Big Brown benefited from staying off the track on Sunday. On Monday, the three-year-old Boundary colt jogged around the 1½-mile Belmont main track one time after schooling in the paddock. Exercise rider Michelle Nevin kept an attentive hold on the undefeated winner of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) and Preakness winner. Dutrow is leaving all decisions on the foot up to McKinlay.

“It’s so good that we have time,” Dutrow said. “The longer we wait, the better for him. …It just keeps getting better, better, and better.”

Frank Angst is the senior writer for Thoroughbred Times