The Kentucky Derby is not moving from the first Saturday in May. The Belmont Stakes obviously could move from its Saturday date in early June, but New York Racing Association officials might not want to move it. Maryland Jockey Club president Tom Chuckas has made it clear that he would like to move the Preakness farther back from the Derby and change the spacing between the Triple Crown races.

BALTIMORE – As soon as the gate opened, the 139th Preakness was a battle of tactics and wits as much as a test of raw speed. The field was loaded with potential front-runners, and the jockeys neither wanted to let a formidable rival steal away nor get involved in a suicidal early duel. “There were a lot of things going on,” said California Chrome’s jockey, Victor Espinoza. “I got more tired mentally than physically.”

California Chrome chose neither his parents nor his destiny. As a Thoroughbred racehorse, you pretty much work with what you’re handed at birth, and what he has done is remarkable, rising from the protection of restricted stakes competition to sit atop the sport on a five-race winning streak crowned by the Kentucky Derby.

BALTIMORE – When California Chrome won the Kentucky Derby, racing fans loved the story: down-to-earth owners, an old-school trainer, and a humbly bred colt. The saga could get even better as California Chrome attempts to win Saturday’s Preakness and move closer to a sweep of the Triple Crown.

It wasn’t supposed to be played for dark comedy. That’s just how it turned out. The NBC broadcast of the 140th Kentucky Derby featured a brief scene from the Churchill Downs jockeys’ room in which Barbara Borden, chief state steward of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, urged the 19 riders in the upcoming race to, among other things, “take care of yourselves, your fellow riders, and those magnificent horses you’re on.”

Since 1933, the Preakness Stakes has been run without variation as the second jewel in the American Triple Crown. During that period, nine winners of the Kentucky Derby failed when asked to win the Preakness as well but then came right back to take the Belmont Stakes in New York, as if Maryland were nothing but a bad dream.

These nine won the Parenthetical Crown, the Triple with the Hole in the Middle, roundly greeted in the Belmont Park winner’s circle with polite applause and a melancholy sigh that said, “Where were you when we needed you back on Old Hilltop?”

The filly who could have won the Preakness won’t be in Baltimore on Saturday.

Untapable captured the Kentucky Oaks in sensational fashion, a performance significantly faster than California Chrome’s Kentucky Derby victory the next day. But trainer Steve Asmussen and owner Ron Winchell decided almost immediately against challenging males in the Preakness. “It is not in her interests to run back in two weeks,” the trainer said.

It is one thing to spend a lifetime in abject hero worship of your father. It’s entirely another to walk a few miles in his shoes.

That is exactly what Daryle Ann Lindley Giardino has done, however, by winning a Wrangler Award given by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City for the Thoroughbred racing documentary “Behind the Gate,” produced with her husband, Mark Giardino.

Cobra Farm Lexington, Ky.

The May 1 issue of Daily Racing Form featured an article about prominent New York trainer Richard Violette. Violette’s criticism of The Jockey Club and his support for the proposed uniform medication rules are informative and certainly portray one of New York’s leading trainer’s position on Lasix and many other therapeutic drugs, which were originally intended for use to “cure an injury or help clear an illness.”

Art Sherman was confused. He thought he had won the 140th Kentucky Derby with California Chrome, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.

“He goes from winning one of the fastest Santa Anita Derbies in history to winning one of the slowest Kentucky Derbies since 1974,” Sherman said. “I don’t get it. Maybe it’s the training. But I’m not giving the money back.”