A Little Warm will try to make Derby field

Though he is unlikely to make it into the field due to insufficient graded stakes earnings, A Little Warm is being trained as if the Kentucky Derby will be his next start, trainer Tony Dutrow said Wednesday.

Dutrow said A Little Warm, the runner-up to Mission Impazible in the Louisiana Derby, is in training at the Palm Meadows training center in south Florida. He is currently in a three-way tie for 22nd on the Derby earnings list - only the top 20 get in. There are several runners below him on the list who are running in one of the remaining Derby prep races, including Odysseus and Pleasant Prince, who are in Saturday's Blue Grass Stakes.

"I'm going forward with him like he's running at Churchill,'' Dutrow said. "The horse is right were I want him. He's doing great. I'm really, really, really happy with the way A Little Warm came out of the Louisiana Derby.''

Dutrow said he would leave A Little Warm in south Florida until his Derby status is confirmed. If A Little Warm doesn't make the Derby field, it is likely he will ship to Dutrow's division at Delaware Park, where he would train for a possible start in the Preakness at Pimlico on May 15.