Well rested: Schoolyard Dreams sets sights on the Preakness

Time off helps Schoolyard Dreams

BALTIMORE — Trainer Derek Ryan believes time off is an asset for Schoolyard Dreams.

That theory will be put to the test on Saturday in the Preakness.

A well-rested Schoolyard Dreams will make his first start since finishing fourth in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct on April 3.

“He’s one of those horses who will benefit from five to six weeks between races rather than three to four,” said Ryan who saddled Musket Man to a third-place finish in last year’s Preakness.

The last race was a rush job, and it proved costly. Running only three weeks after suffering a nose loss in the Tampa Bay Derby, Schoolyard Dreams got trounced. He finished fourth, 11¼ lengths behind Eskendereya.

The Wood was a scramble, an effort to earn enough graded-stakes money to qualify for the Kentucky Derby that fell short of the mark.

“He’s not a robust horse that you can run every three weeks,” Ryan said. “It wasn’t an ideal situation and the horse wasn’t 100 percent. I think this horse will really benefit by skipping the Derby. If he ran in the Derby, I don’t think he’d be running this week.”

Eibar Coa, who rode Musket Man in last year’s Preakness, will be aboard for the first time. This will be Schoolyard Dream’s seventh race (2-2-1), and his seventh different rider.

LUCKY 13: It appears a field of 13 will be entered for the Preakness on Wednesday when post positions are drawn at 5 p.m.

Of the 20 who ran in the Kentucky Derby, only five are heading to Baltimore for the middle jewel of the Triple Crown. Derby winner Super Saver tops the list along with Paddy O’Prado (third in the Derby), Lookin At Lucky (sixth as the 6-1 favorite), Dublin (seventh) and Jackson Bend (12th).

The expected so-called new shooters making debuts in the series for 3-year-olds are: Northern Giant, Aikenite, First Dude, Caracortado, Hurricane Ike, Pleasant Prince; Schoolyard Dreams and Yawanna Twist.

Fourteen runners is the maximum in the Preakness.

Todd Pletcher could have added Mission Impazible, the Louisiana Derby winner who was ninth in the Kentucky Derby, to fill out the field. Pletcher decided Tuesday morning to keep the colt in the barn. Mission Impazible will now be pointed to the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park in August.

“We were on the fence with him and never had fully committed to going,” Pletcher said. “We wanted to see how he trained and felt like at the end of the day, that he needed a little more time.”

That still leaves Pletcher a strong hand for the Preakness with Super Saver and Aikenite, the runner-up in the Derby Trial.

Super Saver had a quiet Tuesday morning at Churchill Downs, walking around the barn after turning in a strong three-furlong workout Monday in 36.60 seconds.

“He came out of the work very well,” Pletcher said. “Everything is on go.”

“We anticipated a full gate and I guess it’s close to that,” Pletcher said. “It’s an interesting Preakness to me. We’re happy to be coming with the Derby winner, and feel like he’s doing very well.”

Super Saver is slated to arrive in Baltimore on Wednesday aboard a flight that will originate in California with a stop in Kentucky.

VERY UNLUCKY: Bob Baffert can’t change Lookin At Lucky’s name, a misnomer in that the colt has been anything but lucky.

So he did something else, firing veteran jockey Garrett Gomez and replacing him with up-and-coming Martin Garcia.

Baffert hopes a new rider brings a change in fortune.

Sent off the 6-1 favorite in the Kentucky Derby, Lookin At Lucky broke from the rail and was immediately squeezed out of contention in the early scramble for position. Shuffled back to 18th, Lookin At Lucky made a strong late run to get sixth. It marked the third straight race in which the horse could not get a clean trip.

The 25-year-old Garcia, a California-based rider, will be making his Preakness debut.

“He’s still young,” Baffert said. “He’s not a completely polished rider like a Gomez or John Velazquez, but he’s getting there. He’s got a ways to go. He’s a raw talent and he’s riding with a lot of confidence right now. He’s not intimidated. He rode in the Derby and he was a little bit nervous, but he did as good as he could under the circumstances.”

Baffert put him on Conveyance, the pacesetter who faded to 15th in Garcia’s first Derby.

“If he was a basketball player, he would have gone to the NBA right out of high school,” Baffert said. “He’s got that kind of raw talent.”

Gomez quickly picked up the mount on Dublin, replacing Terry Thompson.

DUTROW AGAIN: Trainer Rick Dutrow, Jr. bids for a second Preakness win in three years when he sends out Yawanna Twist.

Dutrow developed Big Brown, the dominant winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 2008. This time, Dutrow will saddle a long shot— a New York bred who has two wins and two seconds in four races. Most recently, Yawanna Twist was second in the Illinois Derby,

“We’ve kind of had this on our minds for a while,” Dutrow said. “He runs big every time we’ve run him. He never disappoints us.”

Yawanna Twist, who made his first start in December 2009, will be the least experienced Preakness starter. His owners, the Steel Your Face Stable, paid a late $6,000 Triple Crown nomination fee after the Illinois Derby on April 3. His graded-stakes earnings were insufficient to qualify for the Kentucky Derby.

“I’m happy he ran that big in the Illinois Derby,” Dutrow said. “It kind of told us where he was at.”

The colt has a solid Preakness connection in his pedigree. The son of Yonaguska is out of the mare Twist and Pop. Her sire was Oliver’s Twist, the local hero bred in Maryland who finished second in the 1995 Preakness at 25-1.