LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The unpredictable spring weather at Churchill Downs that has prompted the connections of many of the top contenders for this year’s Kentucky Derby to complete most if not all of their final preparations for the race at home reared its ugly head on Monday. Moderate to heavy morning rain turned the main track to a sea of slop from the time the course opened for training at 5:15 a.m.

Quip, who won the Tampa Bay Derby and most recently was second in the Arkansas Derby, will bypass the Kentucky Derby on May 5 at Churchill Downs and instead be pointed to the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown, on May 19 at Pimlico, Elliott Walden, the chief executive officer of co-owner WinStar Farm, said Monday.

“We’re not going to run him,” Walden said from the 2-year-olds in training sale in Ocala, Fla. “We wanted a little more time with him.”

Gronkowski’s trip to the Kentucky Derby has been spiked.

According to a press release put out by his majority owner, Phoenix Thoroughbreds, Gronkowski has a slight infection and will miss the May 5 Kentucky Derby. Combined with news on Monday that Arkansas Derby runner-up Quip will bypass the Derby, that allows both Combatant and Instilled Regard into the Derby field.

The press release said Gronkowski spiked a fever over the weekend and had to be treated with antibiotics, preventing him from traveling from England to Churchill Downs for the Derby.

West Point Thoroughbreds has purchased an interest in multiple graded stakes winner My Boy Jack, chasing the Kentucky Derby in partnership for the second straight year.

The move adds another ownership group to the program for My Boy Jack in a season in which partnerships have been the norm for Derby hopefuls. My Boy Jack will race for Sol Kumin’s Monomoy Stables, Kirk Godby and Matt Bryan’s Don’t Tell My Wife Stables, and West Point Thoroughbreds. Jockey Kent Desormeaux will wear the Monomoy silks aboard the colt trained by his brother, Keith.

ARCADIA, Calif. – With slight urging in the stretch, Bolt d’Oro worked seven furlongs in 1:24.20 at Santa Anita on Sunday, his second-to-last major exercise before the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 5.

Second in the $1 million Santa Anita Derby on April 7, Bolt d’Oro worked alone on Sunday under jockey Victor Espinoza, who will ride the colt for the first time in the Kentucky Derby.

As the spring classics approach, the big differences this year between the 3-year-old male and 3-year-old female divisions come into sharp focus.

This entirely likeable 3-year-old male crop has two sensational, undefeated colts in Justify and Magnum Moon who are perhaps the biggest threats we’ve ever seen to end the streak born in 1882 of every Kentucky Derby winner since then having raced at 2.

The smile that has been a seemingly permanent fixture on trainer Chad Brown’s face throughout April at Keeneland, as his barn continues a strong meet and he prepares juvenile champion Good Magic for the Kentucky Derby, slipped for just an instant.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The unbeaten and lightly raced Justify, the current favorite for the Kentucky Derby on May 5, turned in his penultimate drill for the race early Saturday morning at Santa Anita, officially going six furlongs in 1:13 after breaking off at the five-furlong pole.

The Kentucky Derby is a race unlike any other, and it’s appropriate that many bettors approach it that way. For some, Derby opinions are formulated days or even weeks in advance, not by the usual method of analyzing past performances but instead by story lines or obscure historical statistics that captured their attention.

On April 21, 1951, Counterpoint, who began the year as a maiden, finished second in the Ben Ali Handicap. Five days later he was fourth in the Blue Grass, then, on May 5, he finished 11th of 20 in the Kentucky Derby. Things got better, and by the end of the season he was Horse of the Year.

In a 19-day period between April 13 and May 2, 1942, Alsab, the reigning 2-year-old champ, finished second in the Chesapeake Trial, second in the Chesapeake Stakes, third in the Derby Trial, and second in the Kentucky Derby. One week later he won the Preakness.