Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist was pegged as a potential Triple Crown winner heading into the Preakness Stakes but it didn’t work out that way. He suffered his first career loss in the second leg of the Triple Crown. Immediately after the race, he spiked a fever and had to be scratched from the Belmont Stakes. Further examination revealed an elevated white blood cell count and an unspecified infection. This kept Nyquist out of action for awhile but he returned to training over a month ago. He’ll return to racing competition next Sunday in the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell Invitational at New Jersey’s Monmouth Park.

Nyquist turned in his final timed workout prior to the Haskell on Sunday at Del Mar. It was one day after several horses were injured in morning training prompting a number of trainers to cancel or postpone workouts for their horses. There was some concern about the track conditions on Saturday but any issue was apparently dealt with prior to yesterday’s racing card which went off without a hitch. Nyquist worked approximately one hour prior to the start of Sunday’s racing card covering a mile in 1:39.40.

Trainer Doug O’Neill isn’t concerned about the layoff and suggests that he looks as good as he did immediately before the Kentucky Derby: “That was nice. I’m really happy. I think we’re where we were going into the Derby.” In fact, the first 1/3 of the workout was quicker than his pre-Derby work–O’Neill likes to see Nyquist take the early part of a race slow. The trainer explained what his thinking was in ordering the quicker work: “The thinking is the track is a little tighter before the first race and we wanted a little bit more of a stiff work. He went off nice and relaxed, finished up, did it the right way.”

Nyquist worked with a two year old horse named Sorry Erik. He blew past Sorry Erik in about five furlongs with his regular jockey Mario Guttierez aboard and covered the last quarter mile without any pressure from behind. Nyquist will leave for New Jersey on Wednesday in advance of Sunday’s race.