What went wrong for Weyburn … and what's next?

Few would have expected Weyburn to win last Saturday's Jim Dandy (G2), considering that the field included Essential Quality.

Still, trainer Jimmy Jerkens was disappointed in his fourth-place finish behind Essential Quality, Keepmeinmind and Masqueparade.

"He looked like he was training so superbly going into it," Jerkens told Horse Racing Nation Tuesday. "I was surprised he didn't offer more resistance than he did. He was playing pretty close to decent pace and all that, but I thought he was ready for the race of his life. So overall, it was disappointing."

Part of the reason for the disappointment was that Weyburn, a 3-year-old son of Pioneerof the Nile, had come within a neck of beating Mandaloun in his previous race, the Pegasus Stakes.

"It's Saratoga. Saratoga is weird. You just never know what you're going to happen up here. I don't know why it's why it's like that, but some horses reverse their form and others go the other way. And you don't know why, really. He looked like he was set to run really well and didn't run terrible."

Jerkens said that during the ride, jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. "looked like he was just cruising. I guess he expected whenever he asked him, he would accelerate, which he didn't. He was able to carry him out to some degree, but he didn't have enough to make a difference. And then he came over on him – which jocks always do when they surge to the lead, they come over and make sure that the horses don't come back on them. That kind of discouraged him, and then he just didn't he just ambled on home after that."

For Weyburn's next start, "we've got some things on the table there, the Queen's Plate, I guess. It's pretty close, but it's still a race that is prestigious and a lot of money, and he'd probably be a big favorite in there. We were hoping we could go the route to the Travers, which isn't out of the question, but we're going have to kind of send him back to the track tomorrow. And Rob Landry, who's the general manager (of owner Chiefswood Stables), he'll be back from Fair Hill on (Thursday), come by the barn and we'll take a look together and put our heads together and figure out what we're going to do."

Jerkens has only a few graded-stakes-type horses in his barn right now. One of them is Rocketry, a 7-year-old son of Hard Spun who won last year's Marathon Stakes (G2) at Keeneland but has not scored in two starts this year. He is entered in the Birdstone at Saratoga on Thursday.

"He's probably a little past it, but I see a little resurgence in his training and the way he looks physically. I don't know if it's good enough to beat those two, Lone Rock especially and Moretti. But the thing going for him is the mile-and-three-quarters aspect of it because he's such a lumbering horse that if they get to going too fast looking to beat each other, he might be able to pick up the pieces. So that's what we're hoping."

And then there is King James, a 3-year-old son of Nyquist who broke his maiden in June on his fourth try and then finished seventh in a 5 1/2-furlong allowance race at Saratoga on June 28.

"He didn't make much headway," Jerkens said. "So we might give him another chance at it. If not, maybe a high-priced claiming for straight 3-year-olds at the same distance. Looks like that's what's in store for him."