[King Glorious]

I know it wouldn't happen but I'd love for Big Brown to skip the Preakness. Listening to the post-race interviews, Dutrow really seemed skeptical about his chances. Imagine that. Before the Derby, he was overflowing with confidence. After that route, he seems skeptical. Well, not skeptical but less confident. He was saying how he wouldn't even be able to train him and may not even breeze him between now and then. He was saying how normally he likes to prepare for a race but now he can't. I'd love to see a trainer win the Derby and say "running back on two-weeks is not in the best interests of my horse" and skip the race. I can't help but think back to the Barbaro situation. Were his long breaks by design or out of necessity? Did the way he came out of races tell Matz that Barbaro needed more time to recover than a few weeks? Obviously, we know about BB's foot history. Is it totally behind him? Did Dutrow chose the Florida Derby and the longer break between then and the Kentucky Derby because he felt that chosing a later race wouldn't allow him the recovery time that he NEEDS? I'm not saying I predict a breakdown in the Preakness but with horses like this, it's always a little bit of a bigger concern for me. When Dutrow made his comments, it reminded me of why I liked Smarty Jones so much. I remember Frankel was talking about him and saying how he had the advantage of training Ghostzapper how he wanted to because he set the schedule while Smarty had his set for him.