Big Brown stays on course for Triple Crown

BALTIMORE (Reuters) - Preakness champion Big Brown emerged from Saturday's race in good shape and is on course to capture the elusive Triple Crown, his trainer said on Sunday.

If Big Brown wins the June 7 Belmont Stakes in New York, he would become the first horse in 30 years to achieve the feat.

"If he comes out of it good, trains good, I don't see a problem," trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. told reporters of the colt's Triple Crown chances. "It looks like he's ready."

Big Brown cruised to a 5-1/4-length victory in the $1 million Preakness, a margin that could have been greater if jockey Kent Desormeaux had pushed the colt harder.

"We saw another little new part of him," Dutrow told reporters. "He was down on the inside with horses in front of him, a horse outside of him.

"He was down on the inside. The way he just shuts down in his races, it seems like a mile and a half is not going to be a problem with him."

The Belmont Stakes has been the graveyard of recent Triple Crown contenders. Since 1979, 10 horses have lost their chance of achieving the feat by losing the grueling mile-and-a-half Belmont.

Only 11 horses have claimed the Triple Crown, winning the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes.

"Everybody wants to see something great," said Dutrow. "Maybe we're going to see that. That'd be a lot of fun.

"Everybody's going to find out where he belongs. If he wins his next race, he's going to be up there with any good horse that's ever run.

"When everybody's talking about him, he'd be in the same breath as Secretariat, Affirmed, all those good ones."

(Editing by Ed Osmond)