'Too soon': Rivelli passes on Preakness for Two Phil's

Two Phil's, who finished a gallant second to Mage in the Kentucky Derby, will not run in the Preakness Stakes, trainer Larry Rivelli said.

"It's just way too soon," Rivelli said Tuesday. "He ran his ass off. Came back good, looks great, ate everything and happy. It just, it'd be like 11 days from now. It's just the quick, too quick turnaround."

Rivelli said he generally prefers to avoid bringing his horses back too soon.

"To be honest with you, even if he would have won, it would have been a lot of pressure to run and I would have been probably strongly against it."

Rivelli hasn't decided where the Hard Spun colt's next start will be.

"We're just going to look for another race, possibly the Belmont, or there's a million other races for him."

Mage is expected to try to win the second leg of the Triple Crown.

Forte, the Kentucky Derby favorite until he was ruled out by state veterinarians on race day, is ineligible for the Preakness because he remains on the veterinarian's list for 14 days, too late to be entered in the second leg of the Triple Crown. (Read more here.)

It was a good weekend for Rivelli. Earlier on the Churchill Downs card, he won the Grade 2 Twin Spires Turf Sprint with Nobals, who is owned by Two Phil's co-owner Patricia's Hope.

The Rivelli team shipped to their Hawthorne base Sunday, where Rivelli and Patricia's Hope won an allowance race with Uncashed, a 3-year-old gelding who has three wins and a second from four starts.

"We kept rolling," Rivelli said. "We kept the mojo going. He won pretty easy, too. So we're having a good week."