Unbeaten Nyquist begins Pimlico work ahead of Preakness
Undefeated Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist took his first steps at Pimlico on Wednesday ahead of the Preakness Stakes on May 21, when he will try to extend his Triple Crown bid.
The bay colt, the class of three-year-olds last Saturday in his victory at Chruchill Downs, jogged a mile on his first trip over the dirt track at Baltimore and will jog at Pimlico again on Thursday.
"We just wanted to see him move efficiently, and he did everything and more that we wanted to see this morning," said Jack Sisterson, the assistant trainer who oversaw Nyquist's travel from Kentucky.
"He was fantastic."
Doug O'Neill, Nyquist's trainer, went home to California after the Kentucky Derby triumph but is expected to arrive Thursday at Pimlico.
In 2012, O'Neill used the same plan to have a Derby winner arrive early to adjust to the track and barn and won with I'll Have Another, although the horse was scratched from the Belmont Stakes the morning of the race with a tendon injury.
"It's great having the experience of having the success with I'll Have Another. It just makes you wake up every morning wanting it that much more," Sisterson said.
The latest O'Neill-guided horse, named after Detroit Red Wings center Gustav Nyquist of Sweden, held off fast-closing Exaggerator at the wire to win the Derby in 2:01.31.
Nyquist, a son of Uncle Mo who has won all eight of his career starts, will likely be favored in the shortest of the Triple Crown races at 1 3/16ths of a mile (1,900m).
The horse hopes to follow American Pharoah, who last year ended a 37-year drought of sweeping the US flat racing treble.
Nyquist could match Seattle Slew in 1977 as the only unbeaten Triple Crown winners. The only time horses swept the triple in consecutive years came when Affirmed followed Seattle Slew in 1978.
Post positions for a maximum field of 14 will be drawn next Wednesday.