Leparoux to ride Daddy Nose Best; Guyana Star Dweej declared

Leparoux to ride Daddy Nose Best; Guyana Star Dweej

declared

Regular rider Julien Leparoux will return to the saddle for Daddy Nose Best's

attempt in Saturday's Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.

The Eclipse Award-winning jockey has ridden the Scat Daddy colt in eight

consecutive races at six different tracks since July 2011, but opted to stay

with Union Rags in the Kentucky Derby. Leparoux has been aboard for all four of

Daddy Nose Best's victories, including the Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby and the

Grade 3 Sunland Derby.

Daddy Nose Best, 10th in the Kentucky Derby, walked the shedrow at Churchill

Downs' Barn 38 Wednesday morning and was scheduled to be shipped to Baltimore

later in the morning.

Owner Bob Zollars said that he and trainer Steve Asmussen waited a week

before deciding to try the colt in the Preakness.

"We just determined that we felt like he had completely bounced back,"

Zollars said. "As much as you can make a determination of that, he appears to be

ready to go. It's a short turnaround. I was concerned how well he would bounce

back. We've done blood work on him and checked him out. He's very perky, so we

think that he's ready to run again."

One horse who will not make the Preakness is Guyana Star Dweej, a son of

Eddington who was declared after a left front leg injury failed to improve

sufficiently.

"We looked at the horse where he had grabbed his quarter a little bit

galloping, and it was still not properly healed," trainer Doodnauth Shivmangal

reported from Belmont Park Wednesday morning. Shivmangal said. "We didn't get

any kind of work into him because of the track being bad the last week, so we

decided we're going to have to skip this one."

Guyana Star Dweej would have been Shivmangal's second consecutive starter in

the middle jewel of the Triple Crown. Isn't He Perfect finished ninth in last

year's race.

"This is really rough for me," Shivmangal said. "We're more than

disappointed."

In other Preakness news:

Went the Day Well galloped 1 1/2 miles on the Tapeta surface at Fair Hill

Training Center Wednesday morning before his scheduled noon departure for

Pimlico.

Trainer Graham Motion had shipped Animal Kingdom to Pimlico on Preakness Day

morning before his Kentucky Derby winner closed from far back to finish second

behind Shackleford last year. He determined that Went the Day Well would benefit

from arriving at Pimlico a few days before the Preakness.

"It's all about letting him take it all in. He'll school in the gate and

school in the paddock tomorrow," Motion said. "It's as much about getting him

used to his surroundings as it is about getting him used to the track."

Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas sat in his traditional corner at the far

end of the Preakness Stakes Barn Wednesday morning, looking none the worse for

wear after a 12-hour van ride the previous day with Optimizer and five other

equine passengers from Churchill Downs.

Some 76-year-olds might have slept in after the tiring ordeal, but Lukas was

up at 3:30 a.m. (EDT) and was the first one at the barn -- as usual. He sent

Optimizer to the track at Pimlico for the first time for a 1 1/4-mile gallop

only two days after his final work in Louisville.

"We left right out of the gate at 5 a.m.," the five-time Preakness winner

said. "I go with the horses. If they fly, I go with the horses. If they van, I

go with the horses. At this stage of my career, I'm not supposed to have to do

that, but I don't feel very comfortable leaving them there."

The former quarter horse trainer and high school basketball coach, who made

racing history when he won six consecutive Triple Crown races in the mid-1990s,

said the vans of today are actually more creature-comfortable for the

Thoroughbreds because of the easier accessibility to feed and water.

"It's more hours than a flight, but you'd be surprised how well those horses

relax," he said. "I go with them every step of the way. I call all the shots."