[bc_video_id:324591:]BALTIMORE – California Chrome, the Kentucky Derby winner, had a routine gallop of two miles on Friday morning at Pimlico during conditions that were anything but routine, a heavy downpour that left the track sloppy and forced the afternoon’s grass races to be moved to the main track.

Fortunately, the storm was predicted to be fast-moving, was expected to be gone by late Friday, and thus should result in a fast track by post time Saturday afternoon for the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown.

BALTIMORE – Predicting the pace of the Kentucky Derby this year was an exercise in uncertainty. Some forecasters got the slow pace right, but many thought the fractions laid down by the early leaders would be several lengths faster. In the end, a lack of surefire, need-the-lead-type horses combined with instances of bad luck and passive tactics to produce the second-slowest Derby half-mile split, 47.37 seconds, in 16 years.

BALTIMORE - California Chrome has a small blister in his throat, which Alan Sherman, Art Sherman’s son and top assistant, described as a pimple. He said it appeared before the Derby, went down after treatment, and came back this week.

The throat is being treated again with a wash that is “all glycerin to coat it,” Alan Sherman said. He said blood work drawn Thursday was perfect, indicating no infection. He did not sound concerned in the least.

“Maybe we’ll get a bigger price,” Alan Sherman said.

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.

[bc_video_id:324514:]BALTIMORE – The silks jockey Victor Espinoza wears when he rides California Chrome have a donkey on the back. The colt’s trainer, Art Sherman, thinks that because of California Chrome’s daylight victory in the Kentucky Derby and his overwhelming favoritism in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes here at Pimlico, there will be a target on his back.

So, this Preakness boils down to mere child’s play – a game of pin the tail on the donkey.

DRF Breeding staff writer Joe Nevills analyzes the Preakness Stakes field, in post position order, in the form of Haiku; a Japanese poem of 17 syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five.

Dynamic Impact
Illinois Derby
Yields highest last-race Beyer
Who saw that coming?

General a Rod
The late addition
Ran true to form at Churchill
Which is to say, “meh”

California Chrome
King of the Derby
Faces a less daunting task
It’s his race to lose

At the annual Alibi Breakfast on Thursday, retired jockey Ramon Dominguez was honored with the Special Award of Merit, given by the Maryland Jockey Club to someone who has made a positive impact on racing.

Dominguez won 4,985 races in his career, was a three-time Eclipse Award winner as the nation’s top jockey, and was a leading rider on the Maryland and New York circuits. Dominguez was forced to retire last year due to head trauma suffered in a spill at Aqueduct in January 2013.

BALTIMORE – Jockey Alberto Delgado has a photo on his cellphone that starkly illustrates the excruciating difference between what might have been and what is.

The photo shows Delgado aboard California Chrome in the Santa Anita starting gate the Friday of Breeders’ Cup weekend in 2013. The colt is nearly upright while jumping at the break, conceding valuable ground to his opposition in the Golden State Juvenile. California Chrome was never a factor thereafter, finishing sixth.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Linda Rice’s purpose for being in Maryland this week is two-fold. The first, naturally, is to run Kid Cruz in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes at Pimlico. The second is to work the sales grounds at nearby Timonium in search of the next big horse.

Rice, 50, has spent a good portion of her adult life at horse auctions, more often than not watching others buy the horses she wanted but could not afford. Over the last few years, Rice has come up with a Plan B: the claim box.

With several one-dimensional speeds entered, plotting the race flow of the 139th running of the Preakness is relatively straightforward. The obvious candidates to make the lead are Bayern and Social Inclusion, and the presence of that pair alone would be enough to ensure a quick, contested pace. Fairly elementary, at least on the surface.