I've been banging this drum all week, and it's mostly because of your seminar last year and what I learned prior to last year's Preakness (and from the results of the race).

Horses coming out of the Derby or Derby weekend tend to do well in the Preakness. There's something to be said for running back a fit, in-form horse when they're fit and in-form. The trifecta of last year's Preakness was swept by horses who ran on Derby day.

It is not about two races in two weeks. It's about three races in five, or possibly just the turnaround from the Preakness to the Belmont. 73.7% run an off or an X (I went back and checked the Youtube archive yesterday), and horses running in the Belmont having made their last start in the Derby do well. To anyone questioning this decision, I'd ask how did Dornoch and Sierra Leone run last year vs. Mystik Dan and Seize the Grey?

Mott either knows this directly or has a sense of this as a brilliant horseman. He also probably knows that it's very unlikely a closer, even a really tight-patterned, in-form closer, will win the Triple Crown. What he does know is, if he sends his fit, in-form colt to Pimlico and Sovereingty runs like it, he may be backed into a corner he doesn't want to be in.

Something that could just be anecdotal but also rings in my brain is Mott's experience last year with the fastest horse in his barn, Arthur's Ride. The horse picked up a win in the Whitney with their eyes really on the Gold Cup. Mott decided to run him back in a month off a negative race (and an off) and the horse was gassed. He was quoted as saying he "hated to see it." He then gave Arthur's Ride time into the Breeders' Cup and he still bounced.