The ever-changing Preakness field lost a top contender on Monday when Silent Tactic was ruled out of the race by trainer Mark Casse.  Silent Tactic, runner-up to Renegade in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby, was scratched from the Kentucky Derby due to a bruised left front foot. Casse had hoped he was making progress but when he removed the full pad that Silent Tactic had been training in and put on a regular shoe, Casse was not happy with how the horse was moving.  “He gallops good, he’s not 100 percent jogging,” Casse said Monday. “We’re going to work on getting his foot better before we do anything.”  Irad Ortiz Jr. was expected to ride Silent Tactic, but he will now ride Talkin. Trainer Danny Gargan was going to use Kendrick Carmouche on Talkin but did tell Carmouche’s agent, Jim Riccio Jr., to take calls at Aqueduct on Saturday in case the five-time Eclipse Award winner Ortiz became available. Carmouche is named to ride eight horses Saturday at Aqueduct.  The defection of Silent Tactic continued a trend of horses defecting from the Preakness, a race at one time that looked like it could draw more than the maximum 14 horses permitted to run. Now, a field of 14 was expected to enter, with Incredibolt added to the field on Monday. Post positions were to be drawn early Monday evening at a function at Laurel. :: Get ready for Preakness with DRF past performances, picks, and betting strategies! Incredibolt, sixth, beaten four lengths by Golden Tempo, in the Kentucky Derby, was an 11th-hour entrant into Saturday’s Preakness Stakes. Trainer Riley Mott said it was around 11 a.m. Monday morning that he began getting a “gut feeling” to give the Preakness a try and after speaking to the proprietors of Pin Oak Stud, which owns the colt, the decision was made to go ahead and enter. “Sometimes you get a gut feeling you have to go with it,” Mott said Monday afternoon. “We respect the competition. Obviously, some of the beasts are maybe waiting for the Belmont; thought it might be the right opportunity to try the Preakness.” Jaime Torres, aboard for all six of Incredibolt’s starts, including a four-length victory in the Virginia Derby, will have the mount. The trend of defections started last Wednesday when Cherie DeVaux said Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo would pass the Preakness to point to the Belmont Stakes on June 6. DeVaux preferred having more time between races as opposed to wheeling back in two weeks.  Last Friday, Bob Baffert said Crude Velocity, undefeated winner of the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile, would skip the Preakness to most likely point for the Grade 1 Woody Stephens at Aqueduct on the Belmont undercard. Fringe players Smoovin Saturday and Express Kid were both removed from consideration over the weekend.  On Monday, trainer John Ennis confirmed Great White as a starter in the Preakness. Great White drew into the Kentucky Derby off the also-eligible list but was scratched moments before the race when he flipped behind the starting gate. Ennis was aboard for a Saturday workout at The Thoroughbred Center, a training facility in Lexington, and said he felt the horse was in good shape. With Silent Tactic out, there are now only three graded stakes winners in the Preakness field -- Grade 1 Champagne winner Napoleon Solo, Grade 3 Gotham winner Iron Honor, and Incredibolt, who won the Grade 3 Street Sense.  It’s unclear who will be favored in the Preakness. One possibility is Chip Honcho, who despite finishing fifth in the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby in his most recent start had a pretty good winter in New Orleans.  Chip Honcho won the Gun Runner Stakes in December and was second to Paladin in the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes in February, finishing 5 1/2 lengths in front of Golden Tempo. It was Chip Honcho’s fourth-place finish in the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes – along with the poor effort in the Louisiana Derby – that played a role in the decision by Chip Honcho’s connections to skip the Kentucky Derby.  “How disappointed with how he ran in the Louisiana Derby, when I feel he’s capable of way better, had everything to do with the decision,” said Steve Asmussen, who trains Chip Honcho for a partnership that includes Lee Ackerley, James Sherwood, Jode Shupe, and John Cilia. “The circumstances of the day set him off and make him hard for a rider to handle. Obviously, we’ve seen him not respond to what the rider was asking him to do on more than one occasion.”  Asmussen noted that in the Lecomte Stakes Chip Honcho became rank underneath Paco Lopez after breaking slowly and used himself too much early to having anything left with which to finish.  With the Preakness being run at Laurel Park and attendance being capped at 4,800, Asmussen believes that’s a better atmosphere for Chip Honcho to show his best.  “Limited attendance at Laurel as opposed to what they get in that run to the first turn for the Derby, this gives him a way better chance to show who he is,” Asmussen said.  Chip Honcho completed his preparations for the Preakness on Sunday by working an easy half-mile in 50.20 seconds, at Churchill Downs. He galloped out five furlongs in 1:02.60 and pulled up six furlongs in 1:15.20, according to Churchill clockers.  Chip Honcho, a son of Connect, will be ridden in the Preakness by Jose Ortiz, who was aboard Golden Tempo in the Kentucky Derby and won the Kentucky Oaks with Always a Runner.   “The hottest rider in the world riding him? I kind of like that,” Asmussen said.  Everyone should like the long-range forecast for Saturday which calls for partly sunny skies and temperatures in the low 80s.  :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.