New challenges awaiting Street Sense

LOUISVILLE, KY. —  Carl Nafzger used to be a rodeo bull-rider. He has a mouthful of dental work and a nose that’s been broken seven times to prove it.

After winning the Kentucky Derby for the second time Saturday, the trainer of Street Sense is in the chute again for one of the roughest rides in sports, the road to the Triple Crown.

Nafzger low-keys it, saying, “Let the horse train you.

“He’s got a great mind, a great immune system, he’s wonderfully sound -- and it seems like he’s got some ability,” said Nafzger, who won the 1990 Derby with Unbridled only to finish second in the Preakness and fourth in the Belmont.

The horse first in line to try to derail Street Sense in the Preakness May 19 in Baltimore is Hard Spun, the last horse he went around to win the Derby.

At Pimlico Race Course, Hard Spun’s jockey, Mario Pino, will have the home-track advantage Calvin Borel had aboard Street Sense at Churchill Downs.

“If we hook up with him again, well, like I said, this is Calvin Borel’s track,” said Larry Jones, Hard Spun’s trainer. “But we’re going to Pino country. Pino’s been around Pimlico a time or two.

“Maybe we’ll have a different outcome. If we don’t, maybe Carl’s got the super horse he thinks he’s got, and he very well could have.

“Maybe he’s settin’ on the real deal. If I have to run second to the real deal, OK. I know this is the best horse I’ve ever had, but I haven’t had the horses Carl has had.”

At 1 3/16 miles, the Preakness is only a sixteenth of a mile shorter than the Derby.

But “it’s no hidden secret the Preakness favors speed,” said Jones, whose horse has it in spades.

Among the other Derby horses who might move on to the Preakness are Curlin -- the morning-line favorite who was third in the Derby, eight lengths behind the winner -- Sedgefield, a surprise fifth, and Teuflesberg, a speed horse who finished 17th after being second after three-quarters of a mile.

Doug O’Neill, the Hollywood Park-based trainer whose two starters, Great Hunter and Liquidity, finished well back, said he was taking both back to California.

Tiago, the half-brother to Giacomo who finished seventh Saturday, will not run in the Preakness, but the Belmont is a possibility, trainer John Shirreffs said.

Among the new starters likely for the Preakness, with a field limited to 14, are Xchanger, Slew’s Tizzy and C P West. Wayne Lukas will send one of two colts, either Flying First Class or Starbase, and Todd Pletcher’s King Of The Roxy, the second-place finisher in the Santa Anita Derby, becomes Pletcher’s next hope for his first victory in a Triple Crown race.

There’s one more that figures to get a lot of attention.

Chelokee is conditioned by Michael Matz, who watched in distress as his Derby winner, Barbaro, broke down in the opening moments of last year’s Preakness.

It was the wrenching end of another bid for the Triple Crown in a drought that has lasted 28 years -- and counting.

robyn.norwood@latimes.com