By Brian Mulligan

Next stop is Baltimore for Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense and a few others that battled at Louisville and although his trainer Carl Nafzger had the son of Street Cry set to peak last week, he really has not organized a long-range game plan for the colt through the classics and beyond.

A blind hog finds and acorn now and then and although I was able to correctly predict this year’s Derby, you are only as good as your next winner.

Nafzger is on record as saying he was so focused on the Derby that he really had not laid out an extended program for his star.

This is the fallout from the Derby. Nafzger is one of the best trainers around and he obviously knows what to do with a good horse and he is living proof that training horses is a far cry from brain surgery.

Talking about getting Street Sense back to the track, check out this MSNBC quote by his trainer. Nafzger: “If you worked out really hard one day and just laid around the next, you would feel it the day after that. But if you went out and did something the second day, I guarantee you wouldn’t feel so bad on the third. Well, the same concept applies to horses as well. And you could see how good he was feeling out there bucking and playing like he did.”

Pretty logical, huh. It just goes to show, all the stats, all the figures, all the biases, all the workouts and all the junk that surrounds the Triple Crown could very well just come down to common sense.

Can Street Sense win the Preakness? Sure he can. He had dominated his rivals both times the money was down but he also will be challenged by new circumstances during the next leg.

He’s back in 2 weeks, like most others but there are also a few that are lying off stage trying to derail his award winning Broadway show.

And he will have a sixteenth of a mile shorter to run down the speed in Baltimore, and there may lay the key issue.

Also, know that Hard Spun is the real deal. He has only run one bad race and that was when he was hung out to dry in post 9 at Oaklawn, a track he may not have adored.

The Danzig colt was very generous on the lead in the Derby but he doesn’t NEED the lead to win. He came from and length and a half back in third to take the Lanes End like a horse that can be coached.

And he also has the right connections. His conditioner Larry Jones is far from a household name but like Nafzger, he is a great horseman that wins at close to a 20% clip and always sends out live runners. Jones is also high on his colt and high on him for the Preakness.

He told the New York Times that his runner has ‘got a good turn, a good pace factor and a good cruising speed and I know that horses that get on the front end in the Preakness generally can do better than the ones that do at Churchill Downs.’

Some will say that Street Sense got the perfect trip in the Derby and that’s nonsense against 19 foes. Sure, he never got stopped and the pace was hot but he showed a good turn of foot and the ability to accelerate and those are the traits you want in a champion.

Curlin, who had a horrible trip in the Derby and was superior just to run third, is still aiming for the Preakness but would love to see his connections be careful with this colt. He is super talented, has had just 4 races in his career and there are plenty of races left this year where he can make his mark.

As they days dwindle toward the Preakness, and it will be here before you know it, try to get a handle on how the runners are handling the ship to Maryland after the grueling Derby and once again, think pace in Baltimore and don’t get caught up in the hype.