Countdown to the Crown returns for a seventh season online as one of the most comprehensive handicapper’s scouting reports of the 3-year-old scene. Posted each Friday at DRF.com from Jan. 6 through the Belmont Stakes, Countdown keeps you apprised of the rising stars of the 3-year-old class from the maiden ranks through the Grade 1 stakes. You can access daily updates and interactive features at Countdowntothecrown.com as well.

 ELMONT, N.Y. - Dullahan, the third-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, will pass the Preakness Stakes and point to the Belmont Stakes on June 9, his owner, Jerry Crawford, announced Friday morning.

Though trainer Dale Romans has told Crawford and the press that Dullahan came out of the Derby in excellent condition, Crawford believes it is the prudent thing to wait the five weeks to run the multiple Grade 1 winner back.

Mario Gutierrez threw out the first pitch at the Dodgers game in Los Angeles on Wednesday night, and trainer Doug O’Neill will do the same thing at an Orioles game on Tuesday in Baltimore. Paul Reddam was scheduled to be on CNBC on Friday, too, from New York. The celebrity that comes with winning the Kentucky Derby has been instantaneous and, at times, overwhelming for the connections of I’ll Have Another, but by the time the 137th Preakness Stakes rolls around on May 19 at Pimlico, all say the focus will be squarely where it should be, on the racetrack.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Doug O’Neill’s cell phone rang, as it does quite frequently, on the backstretch at Betfair Hollywood Park on Wednesday morning, interrupting a conversation with a ring tone that summarized the trainer’s recent weeks.

The song was “Life’s Been Good,” the 1978 rock classic by Joe Walsh.

“Hey, it’s been on there for a while, before the Santa Anita Derby,” O’Neill said in his defense.

Though it was only a jog, Kentucky Derby runner-up Bodemeister apparently made quite the impression on his first day back to the track Wednesday at Churchill Downs, enough to think that he is well on his way to making a start in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico on May 19.

“Bode super-sharp on track today … Amazing horse,” is what trainer Bob Baffert texted to owner Ahmed Zayat early Wednesday morning after Bodemeister jogged a mile at Churchill.

Yes, that was some kind of smoke belching from a garage nestled beneath the intersection of the 210 and 605 freeways one evening late last December in the little town of Duarte, just down the road from Santa Anita Park. Car fire? Nope. Hooch still? Not hardly. It was just another one of those come-as-you-are racetrack barbecues, this one in honor of Cousin Mike’s birthday thrown by Mike’s Big Uncle Ivan and his pal, Lalo the Mechanic.

Owner Shivananda Parbhoo is so impressed with how well Trinniberg has come out of the Kentucky Derby that he said Tuesday if Derby runner-up Bodemeister doesn’t run in the Preakness, Trinniberg will run in the second leg of the Triple Crown.

“If Bodemeister is going to the Preakness, I’m not going to go,” Parbhoo said by phone Tuesday from Florida. If he’s not going, I’ll go to the Preakness.”

Trinniberg vanned from Kentucky to Calder on Monday and was full of himself Tuesday morning walking the shed, according to Parbhoo.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The chances were roughly one in 153 that I’ll Have Another and Bodemeister would emerge from the Kentucky Derby as the horses deserving of the most attention, at least according to their $306 exacta payoff. Yet as a post-Derby calm settled over the Churchill Downs stable area, the odds were much shorter that those two will dominate the discussion when the Preakness machine starts revving up in the next few days, another new and intriguing storyline in what has become a Triple Crown season filled with such.

ELMONT, N.Y. – With the disappointment of the Wood Memorial still somewhat fresh in their minds, the connections of The Lumber Guy on Monday chose to run their promising 3-year-old New York-bred in Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Peter Pan Stakes rather than wait a week for the $1 million Preakness at Pimlico.

The Peter Pan is run at 1 1/8 miles around one turn. The Preakness is run at 1 3/16 miles around two turns against the supposed upper echelon of the 3-year-old division.

I’ll Have Another, who won the Kentucky Derby on Saturday at Churchill Downs, flew to Maryland on Monday to get an early start on preparing for the 137th Preakness Stakes on May 19 at Pimlico Racecourse, a race that, like the Derby, should have a full field.