BALTIMORE – Even if Pimlico gets soaked with the worst of the rain forecast for the area Thursday night and Friday, the main track still should be fast for the Preakness card. The turf course – that’s a different story. At best, the grass figures to be rated “good,” and at worst, it will be soft. Hey Leroy, the morning-line favorite for Saturday’s Dixie Stakes, never has competed on a truly wet turf course, and trainer Manny Azpurua said he has no idea what to expect. Malcolm Pierce, the trainer of Up With the Birds – the horse to beat in the Dixie – will consider scratching if the lawn takes too much rain. “We’re going to put him on a van tonight, and he’ll get there Friday morning,” the Woodbine-based Pierce said Thursday. “I question running him on a real soft turf. It’s so early in the season. You just don’t want to take a chance with a horse this good.”[bc_video_id:324567:] Up With the Birds was the 2013 Canadian Horse of the Year, though an unfortunate trip led to a second-place finish in the $1 million Queen’s Plate. Up With the Birds beat a solid group of 11 foes to win the Grade 1 Jamaica Handicap at Belmont to cap his sophomore season, and he should move forward from a somewhat-disappointing sixth-place finish in a Keeneland allowance race last month, his 2014 debut. ::2014 PREAKNESS STAKES: Latest news, video, and more Pierce, in fact, said the Keeneland course that day was significantly softer than its official “firm” rating, and Up With the Birds’s failure to kick home contributes to his concern over the going Saturday. Pierce expects Up With the Birds to improve on his comeback run, be it Saturday or in a different race in the near future. Up With the Birds wasn’t as fit as Pierce hoped when he returned to the racetrack after a winter break, and the colt is not inclined to exert himself in morning training. “He’s a hard horse to get fit without racing,” Pierce said. “He’s a bit of a lazy workhorse, and he needs company. Now, I think we’re good. We should be a little fitter.” ::DRF Live: Get real-time reports and handicapping insights from Pimlico starting at 10:30 a.m. Saturday Hey Leroy, from the same connections as Preakness runner Social Inclusion, turned his career around when Azpurua switched him from dirt to turf last fall. Just 2 for 14 in dirt races, Hey Leroy has five wins and four seconds from 10 grass starts since November. He exits a convincing win over high-level allowance foes May 3 at Gulfstream after capturing the Grade 3 Appleton Stakes on March 29. “Every race he runs, he improves,” Azpurua said. Hey Leroy has performed decently on good turf, but Azpurua said he has no sense of the gelding’s ability on an off course. “It’s something that I need to find out,” Azpurua said. ::Watch Saturday’s Preakness Day card live In fact, none of the 10 entrants in the 1 1/16-mile Dixie is proven on soft or yielding ground, and that includes French import Nutello, who has been at his best on firmer going. Nutello finished third here April 19 in the Henry S. Clark Stakes, and he might be more likely to improve Saturday than that race’s one-two finishers, Hamp and Roadhog, both of whom are Dixie entrants. Charming Kitten, whose peak performance came in a near-miss last summer in the Virginia Derby; Chamois, who makes his 4-year-old debut and won the $100,000 Duluth Stakes in his final start last year; and Utley, a listed-stakes-class 6-year-old, could contend under the right circumstances.