BALTIMORE – Early Voting headed out of Pimlico early Sunday morning, the Preakness Stakes victory safely tucked away, and with major races this summer his next goals, trainer Chad Brown said Sunday.

Brown, as he intimated Saturday right after the Preakness, said Early Voting would not run in the Belmont Stakes, the final leg of the Triple Crown on June 11 in New York. Brown said he would instead be pointed to the Travers Stakes on Aug. 27 at Saratoga, with a prep in either the Jim Dandy at Saratoga on July 30 or the Haskell at Monmouth on July 23.

Betting on Saturday's Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore was down 5 percent compared to the record wagering on the race last year, according to charts of the races. The decline was most likely due to the absence both of this year’s Kentucky Derby winner and the intense publicity surrounding the second leg of the Triple Crown last year.

BALTIMORE - In the Kentucky Derby, it was shock. In Saturday’s Preakness, it was disappointment.

Trainer Steve Asmussen left Pimlico on Saturday evening bitterly disappointed after Epicenter, surprisingly second-to-last through the opening half-mile, rallied to finish second, 1 1/4 lengths behind Early Voting in Saturday’s 147th Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.

BALTIMORE – At the northwest corner of the stakes barn here at Pimlico Race Course, trainer D. Wayne Lukas settled into a plastic chair on Wednesday, his morning training done. The spot afforded him a view down the shedrow of, among others, his filly Secret Oath, who runs in the Preakness on Saturday. But it also afforded him a view of all he’s done here over the years.

The California Horse Racing Board will study a potential rule that will provide jockeys with a breeding right to a colt or horse that wins “certain” stakes in California.

A potential change is far into the future.

At Wednesday’s meeting of the jockey and driver welfare committee in Sacramento, vice chairman Oscar Gonzales and commissioners Damascus Castellanos and Thomas Hudnut requested that racing board staff review the legal and logistical aspects of the proposal.

BALTIMORE – Epicenter’s presence in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday here at Pimlico marks the sixth straight year that trainer Steve Asmussen will have at least one runner in the race. It’s a testament to the appeal of the Preakness as a Triple Crown event, the depth of his barn, but, perhaps most significantly, how well prepared his horses are for the Kentucky Derby, enabling them to come back in two weeks.

For a man who grew up three blocks from Pimlico Race Course, what could be better than winning the Preakness Stakes the day before your 60th birthday? Maybe winning it again on your 65th birthday?

Owner Seth Klarman has the chance to do just that when he and his four-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown send out Early Voting in Saturday’s 147th Preakness Stakes.

Brad Cox, who was voted the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer the past two years, has been suspended for 10 days by stewards in Kentucky after his horse Warrior’s Charge tested positive for a prohibited amount of the regulated painkiller phenylbutazone after finishing second in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Stakes at Churchill Downs last summer, according to a stewards’ ruling posted Monday.

A New York Supreme Court judge has ruled that a temporary injunction granted to Linda Rice allowing her to train while she appeals a three-year suspension should remain in place until an appeals court hears her case.

The judge, Mark L. Powers of the New York Supreme Court, ruled for Rice in the decision to keep the injunction in place, but he passed on Rice’s motions for the court to declare that the rule applied to her suspension was unconstitutionally “vague” and that her penalty was “arbitrary and capricious.”

This Saturday, the Kentucky Oaks winner Secret Oath will take on the boys in the $1.5 million Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.

In three weeks, Kentucky Oaks runner-up Nest may take on the boys in the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes.

Trainer Todd Pletcher, who won the 2007 Belmont Stakes with the filly Rags to Riches, said Nest is a possibility for the Belmont, pending what happens this Saturday in Baltimore and how his filly trains over the next few weeks.