Like Willie Nelson, Bill Mott just can’t wait to get on the road again. The Derby road, that is. Mott is the defending training champ for the Kentucky Derby, winning it last year when his colt Country House was placed first following the disqualification of Maximum Security. Mott last Saturday put himself in position to get back to this year’s Derby when Modernist scored an upset victory in the second division of the 1 1/8-mile Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds. “I want to do it again, but this time finish in front,” Mott said in a telephone interview from Florida, where he is based for the winter at the Payson Park training center. Modernist thus far has followed a similar path to Country House. Each earned a maiden win in January in his third start and had debuted the previous fall, then made his stakes debut in the Risen Star. Country House finished second in the Risen Star, Modernist went one better. “Their PPs are almost identical,” Mott said. “The dates of their first four races are like a carbon copy.” The path going forward for Modernist, though, likely will differ. By earning 50 points for his victory Saturday on the system used by Churchill Downs to determine the Derby field, Modernist is pretty much guaranteed a spot in the starting gate May 2. Country House ran in the Louisiana Derby, in which he was fourth, then again in the Arkansas Derby in order to accumulate enough points to get in. Mott has more leeway with Modernist, who likely will only have one more start before Derby Day. :: DERBY WATCH: Top 20 Kentucky Derby contenders with comments from Jay Privman and Marty McGee “Going back to the Louisiana Derby,” Mott said of the March 21 race at Fair Grounds, “would be my first preference, since he ran so well over the track, and extending the race this year to a mile and three-sixteenths won’t hurt. “But if I need two more weeks the Wood,” he said, referencing the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct on April 4, “would be the back-up. Unlike last year, where we needed to bring Country House back in the Arkansas Derby to get points, we may not have to do it with this colt.” Modernist’s Beyer Speed Figure in the Risen Star was a career best, but only an 84, well below the division’s best at this point. But Mott points out there were mitigating circumstances that might not have left Modernist at his absolute best last week. His maiden win came at Aqueduct on Jan. 25, a few weeks later than Mott had intended to run him back after his second start, necessitating a quick turnaround for the Risen Star. “He had a fever after his second race. I wanted him to get over that,” Mott said. “I didn’t want to move him out of New York. Wanted him to break his maiden first.” As a result, running in the Risen Star meant he was wheeled back in three weeks, and in that time he was sent by van to Florida, got in one work at Payson Park, then flew to New Orleans. “The situation wasn’t ideal, but I felt if we were going to make the Derby, we had to get going, we had to take this step,” Mott said. “He got on a plane, galloped around the track, schooled good. He showed a lot of class. You want the disposition he showed. It’s so important when you’re shuffling around like that.” Modernist, a son of Uncle Mo, is a homebred for Marty and Pam Wygod. Mott is familiar with the family. Modernist’s granddam, Sweet Life, was the dam of Life Is Sweet, who began her career in New York with Mott in 2007 before she was sent to California to John Shirreffs, for whom she won the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic in 2009. Mott also won graded turf stakes for the Wygods with the likes of After Market and Courageous Cat about a decade ago. They recently reunited, with Mott getting several 2-year-olds last year, including Modernist. Although the official announcement that Country House would not race again was made earlier this month, Mott knew months ago that he would not make it back to racing, but considering how precarious his health was last fall owing to laminitis, Mott said he was “relieved he’s made as much recovery as he has.” If Mott gets back to the Derby with Modernist, he will seek to become the first trainer to win consecutive Derbies since Bob Baffert in 1997-98. “The reason I want to do it again is there are a lot of naysayers who say Maximum Security should not have been taken down. I totally disagree,” Mott said. “I think the stewards did the right thing. Nobody disputes the fact that Maximum Security is a very, very good horse, and was probably the best horse in the Kentucky Derby. But he made a bad turn.” As he goes down the highway to this year’s Derby, Mott just hopes the world keeps turnin’ his way.