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"When we were in the claiming game, Rick knew the competition," said Goldfarb, who has since upgraded his stock and has 75 horses in training. "He watched him in a walking ring from 100 feet away and knew what was right or wrong about them immediately."

Dutrow's sudden success did not escape the notice of the racing authorities or railbirds. He has been fined or suspended at least once every year since 2000 for medication issues.

In 2005, the year he trained Saint Liam to a Breeders' Cup Classic victory and Horse of the Year honors, Dutrow served a 60-day suspension after two of his horses tested positive for banned substances. Last year, he was fined and suspended for providing misleading information about where a colt named Wild Desert worked leading up to the 2005 Queen's Plate at Woodbine, a race that Wild Desert won.

"Half of them I deserved, half of them I didn't," Dutrow said. "I've messed some things up. But cheating and drugs is not our game. We win because we block and tackle."

As evidence, Dutrow points to his recent success in Dubai, where race-day medications are banned and Diamond Stripes won the $1 million Godolphin Mile and Benny the Bull took the $2 million Golden Shaheen.

He also takes pride in his cautious handling of Big Brown. Last fall, when Big Brown got an abscess in the sole of his left front hoof, which caused a wall separation, Dutrow rested the colt for 45 days. When the same type of injury appeared in the colt's right front hoof in December, Dutrow kept him out of training until February.

"Rick has a feel for keeping horses happy that he learned from his father," said Rudy Rodriguez, 37, who began working for Dick Dutrow 20 years ago and now runs Rick's barn in New York. "He can walk by a horse and tell if it has a fever or is sore. He didn't push on Big Brown when a lot of other trainers would have been tempted to. So now he has a really fresh horse with a world of talent."

It is undefeated Big Brown, indeed, that has kept Dutrow in the barn and out of trouble in the days since their victory in the Derby.

"I would love to have won the Derby and just partied and partied and partied, but man, we got to run him back," he said. "I just couldn't wait to get up the next day and get that day away from us and just head toward the next day. That's what it's all about with me."

Dutrow doesn't care whether his own reputation is rehabilitated. He does, however, want Big Brown's feats immortalized with a Triple Crown and knows he has two more races to get that done.

"Looking at the Preakness coming up, just seeing what I see about how he came out of the race, it looks like we have the best horse in the race, so I'm pretty confident," he said. "He's not hooking the toughest horses out there. So most likely, as long as nothing bad happens, he'll get by this one.

''At the Belmont, he's going to have some fresher, better horses," he said. "And, you know, the third race in five weeks could get to him. He's not a machine. So, you know, I'm guessing right now that the Belmont is going to be the one that we're going to have to really deal with."

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