Big Brown hit the main track just after the renovation break around 8:30 this morning for a 1 1/2-mile gallop under regular exercise rider Michelle Nevin.

It is the first full day in Baltmore for the Big Brown people, who didn't get here until after 8 Wednesday night. It was nearly dark by then, so the horse didn't get a good look around. He made sure he did today.

After returning from his gallop, Big Brown was walked around the shedrow of the stakes barn, "walked" being used in most liberal sense. He stopped repeatedly at the gaps on both sides of the barn, where he posed for photographs, and stuck his head inside one tack room at the far end for a few minutes.

"He just has to see everything," said Walter Blum Jr., part of Big Brown's travel party. Son of the Hall of Fame rider, Blum drove down from Louisville Wednesday, arriving shortly before the horse. "Just look at him. He's so cool about everything."

Sometimes too cool. Trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. found that out when they were getting ready to leave the barn to make the long walk around the track to the paddock for the Derby.

"When we were putting the bridle on him, I wanted to check his temperature. I thought he was sick," Dutrow said. "He wasn't doing nothing. He didn't even care that we were getting ready to go over. It meant nothing to him. He doesn't flex his muscles. The only time he does that is when Kent chirps to him."

Kent is jockey Kent Desormeaux, who rose to prominence riding on the Maryland circuit. It is a homecoming also for Dutrow, a native of Hagerstown, 75 miles west of Baltimore. Dick Dutrow Sr. was a legendary figure around these parts, winning 3,665 races including a then-record 352 in one year before he died in 1999.

The junior Dutrow, whose brother, Anthony, is also a trainer, worked as an assistant for his father until staying in New York when dad moved back to Maryland in 1990.

"I went to a lot of Preaknesses here when I was young," Dutrow said. "We went in the infield a lot of times. Dad always won a race here Preakness day. I can't remember when he didn't win a race that day. He always had 10 in, so he was going to win something.

"It's fun seeing some of my family and my friends. I'm more interested in the horse and the race. That's why we came."

Canadian-based trainer Reade Baker remains steadfast in his belief that Big Brown can be beaten. Baker will saddle Kentucky Bear in the Preakness.

"Favorites get knocked off every single day," Baker said. "Onion beat Secretariat. I'm not as good a trainer as the guy who trained Onion, but it happens."

Onion, of course, was trained by the legendary Hall of Famer Allen Jerkens, beating Big Red in the 1973 Whitney at Saratoga, two months after Secretariat captured the Triple Crown.

Baker is no stranger to Saratoga. Two years ago, he brought Judiths Wild Rush, who ran second to War Front in the Grade II A.G. Vanderbilt. War Front's trainer? Allen Jerkens. Judiths Wild Rush would go on to win his second straight Sovereign Award as Canada's top sprinter.