Horse racing is a much more tactical sport than outsiders believe. It’s much more than showing up at a track and hoping you’ve got the fastest horse. In fact, every decision from how to train the horse to jockey assignment to race selection is a carefully calculated decision. Whether it’s the overall development of the horse or preparation for a specific race, there’s little left to chance.

That explains to some degree why the connections of Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist are being so deliberate in deciding where he’ll race next. He recently resumed training after being sidelined since the Preakness due to illness. He’s looked excellent in his first timed workouts since then and that has given Team Nyquist the confidence to start planning out his race schedule for the rest of the year. While they’ve made no secret that the ultimate goal for Nyquist’s three year old campaign is the Breeders’ Cup Classic everything between now and then is a mystery. More appropriately, it doesn’t seem like Nyquist’s connections have figured out the best course to chart.

Trainer Doug O’Neill revealed nothing when asked about Nyquist’s next race following a timed workout at Santa Anita on Saturday: “Our ultimate goal is the Breeders’ Cup Classic, so we’ll huddle up with the Reddams [owners Paul and Zillah] and the rest of the team and work backwards from that race. We’ll know more as we go along before coming up with a target race. He looked fantastic Sunday morning.”

In theory, Nyquist’s connections would prefer to keep him on the West Coast but the reality is that there aren’t many good races for him there. They have mentioned the Grade II $200,000 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar on July 23 but that would necessitate him running against older horses including (possibly) California Chrome. They’d prefer not to do that. That means they would have to ‘head East’ and the races they’re considering are the Grade II $600,000 Jim Dandy at Saratoga on July 30 or the Grade I $1-million Betfair Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on July 31. The prevailing wisdom for now is that they’d target the Haskell but that’s subject to change.