Nyquist Jogs in 'Controlled Drill' at Pimlico

Under brilliant sunshine, Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner Nyquist put in another morning of light work at Pimlico Race Course May 14 in preparation for the May 21 Preakness Stakes (gr. I), jogging a controlled two laps clockwise along the outer rail. 

With few other horses on the track, exercise rider Jonny Garcia and Nyquist largely had Old Hilltop to themselves. Wearing his customary protective leg wraps, Nyquist entered the gap at the top of the stretch at 8:41 a.m. ET and went around focused and serene. He came off the track at 8:57 a.m. 

"If the race was maybe three weeks out, he'd probably have a nice leg-stretch of a workout, but with only two weeks, we want to make sure he's in the feed tub with a good appetite and good energy, and that's what he's telling us," trainer Doug O'Neill said afterward, standing outside Pimlico's second stakes barn. "Right now he's telling us he's really happy. We don't want to change it up. It would be fun to watch him stretch his legs and really get around there, but we're going to wait for next week to do that."

O'Neill, who attended the prior night's Orioles-Tigers baseball game with his staff as guests of the Orioles and Maryland Jockey Club, said the jogging is "a great piece of exercise, because he's using his whole body. A lot of horses of his caliber are not able to do that because, mentally, they want to slam dunk it, and we're doing a controlled layup drill."

O'Neill said that along with the jogging, Nyquist will get 15 to 20 minutes of walking the shedrow in the afternoon and will stand on a vibration plate for another 20 minutes.

O'Neill said he is not looking for anything in particular from Nyquist during jogs so much as what he doesn't want to see. 

"I'm looking for a horse that's not all hot and bothered and (showing) kidney sweat," O'Neill said. "If he is, I'm not doing my job and we should be doing more with him. But he's completely content with doing probably over two miles of jogging, really, when you're going on the outside fence all the way around. He's controlled, full of energy, and you can see he's wanting to gallop a little bit and he comes back to jogging." 

The one time O'Neill said he saw Nyquist come out of a race showing signs of fatigue was after the FrontRunner Stakes (gr. I) Sept. 26, run 19 days after the Reddam Racing-owned colt won the Del Mar Futurity (gr. I). 

"It was coming back in 19 days, going from Del Mar to Santa Anita, first time going two turns, the saddle slipped even a little bit—that was my bad," he said. "But other than that, he's a horse that's got a ton of natural energy and (in) his races, he gives you so much that you don't need to overdo it in the morning." 

O'Neill added that multiple graded stakes-placed Donworth, like Nyquist owned by Reddam Racing, will make his next start in the $1.25 million NYRA.com Metropolitan Handicap (gr. I), a one-mile race June 11 at Belmont Park. The stakes race is one of 10 scheduled on the Belmont Stakes day card. 

Donworth, who worked a half-mile in :52 2/5 Saturday morning at Pimlico, finished third in his most recent start, the Charles Town Classic (gr. II).