He blew away the field at the Kentucky Derby. He made the Preakness field look like circus ponies. But on the day that would solidify his legacy and give racing a respite from intense scrutiny, Big Brown crumbled. He crumbled so badly that one could legitimately wonder whether he was nothing but a chemical horse, a paper tiger propped up  and propelled  by steroids. After three months of dominance, Big Brown became the first Triple Crown hopeful to finish dead last at the Belmont Stakes. His jockey, Kent Desormeaux, said that heading into the final turn, when he called on Big Brown to give him that special reserve, he realized, “I had no horse.”

The racing public has the right to ask: Did he ever have a super horse?

On Friday, the trainer Rick Dutrow told reporters that he had not given Big Brown a shot of the anabolic steroid Winstrol since before the Kentucky Derby and would not use it Saturday at the Belmont.

Earlier, Dutrow admitted that he gave Big Brown and all his other horses shots of Winstrol on the 15th of each month. He said he did not know what it did.

A day that the troubled racing industry hoped would temporarily focus attention on a historic achievement wound up raising more questions about the horse and the industry.