LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Medina Spirit returned to the racetrack for the first time since his half-length victory Saturday in the Kentucky Derby when jogging an easy mile Wednesday as dawn was breaking at Churchill Downs. “He was moving very good,” said Jimmy Barnes, longtime assistant to trainer Bob Baffert. “He’s happy, we’re all happy.” And so begin the next steps toward the next leg in the Triple Crown, the May 15 Preakness at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Baffert on Tuesday confirmed both Medina Spirit and Concert Tour for the 146th Preakness, which, as often happens, continues to alternately gain and lose prospective starters in the days immediately following the Derby. As of Wednesday morning, as many as 12 3-year-olds could go in the $1 million race. Essential Quality, fourth as the favorite in the Derby, won’t run in the Preakness, as had been a possibility, trainer Brad Cox said Tuesday. The Godolphin homebred could go next in the June 5 Belmont Stakes, with the Travers at Saratoga in August being a primary long-range goal. King Fury, scratched from the Derby with an elevated temperature, also won’t run in the Preakness after initially being considered by trainer Kenny McPeek. :: DRF's Preakness Headquarters: Contenders, latest news, past performances, analysis, and more Cox still has two possible Preakness starters in Mandaloun, the Derby runner-up, and Caddo River, who breezed a half-mile Monday in 48.80 seconds over a sloppy Churchill track. Firm decisions on both colts will be made in due course, said Cox. Besides the top two, the only Derby starters known to be under consideration for the Preakness are Midnight Bourbon (sixth) and Keepmeinmind (seventh). Steve Asmussen said Wednesday at Churchill that he has not fully committed Midnight Bourbon, a Ron Winchell homebred, to the race. “Ron and I agreed there’s no sense to making a decision until we need to,” said Asmussen. “No pros or cons to leaving our mind open.” Jockey assignments for a number of Preakness hopefuls are pending, including Midnight Bourbon. Mike Smith rode the colt in the Derby but will ride Concert Tour in the Preakness. In any other year, most Preakness runners would be flown from Kentucky to Baltimore on the Wednesday before the race. However, Tex Sutton, the widely used equine charter company, expects a service disruption of indefinite duration to begin Sunday, and now Churchill trainers, including Asmussen, have arranged to send their horses eastward Monday and/or Tuesday on van rides that usually take about 11 hours. Meanwhile, Baffert flew home Sunday to California the day after the Derby and is scheduled to return to Louisville this coming weekend while Barnes oversees his Churchill string in the interim. Medina Spirit, owned by Zedan Racing Stables, gave Baffert a record-breaking seventh Derby victory, holding off Mandaloun. Baffert, who is tied with R. Wyndham Walden with the most Preakness wins (seven), said Medina Spirit probably will not have an official breeze before the race. :: Join DRF Bets and get ready to watch and wager on the Preakness with a $250 first deposit bonus  From New York, trainer Todd Pletcher confirmed that he will take a shot in one of the few major races he has yet to win, as Unbridled Honor will run in the Preakness. He named Luis Saez to ride. Unbridled Honor, a son of Honor Code owned and bred by Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm, has one win from five starts. He finished fourth in the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby in March and, most recently, was second to King Fury in the Grade 3 Lexington Stakes on April 10 at Keeneland. “He ran well in the Lexington, I thought he ran sneaky good at Tampa,” Pletcher said Wednesday morning at Belmont Park. “I trained him at Churchill and I thought he breezed very well. He’s a horse I think will appreciate some pace in the race, which, I think the way this is going to shape up, we’re going to see a contested pace.” Unbridled Honor was last of 12 halfway through the Tampa Derby and ended up fourth, beaten seven lengths by Helium. “He got way far out of it and he was finishing best of all,” said Pletcher, whose election into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame as a first-ballot candidate was announced Wednesday morning. “He just had way too much to do turning for home.” Pletcher is winless with nine starters over seven runnings of the Preakness. Impeachment, third in 2000, was his best finish. :: Get Daily Racing Form past performances, featuring exclusive Beyer Speed Figures - the gold standard in horse racing  Also from Belmont, trainer Chad Brown said Wednesday that while he is definitely planning to run Crowded Trade in the Preakness, he hasn’t ruled out also running Risk Taking. Brown said Risk Taking is entered in the Grade 3 Peter Pan on Saturday at Belmont but that he might wait instead for the Preakness. Risk Taking won the Grade 3 Withers in February but was seventh as the favorite in the Wood Memorial. Brown won the Preakness in 2017 with Cloud Computing, whose three prior races – a maiden win, a third in the Gotham, and a second in the Wood – are exactly the same as those of Crowded Trade. “The one difference is I was more confident in the distance for Cloud Computing than I am with Crowded Trade,” Brown said. “Risk Taking is definitely a mile and three-sixteenths, mile and a quarter horse when he fires. He didn’t fire last time.” Brown said Javier Castellano will ride Crowded Trade. He has Irad Ortiz Jr. named on Risk Taking for the Peter Pan, but does not have a commitment from him for the Preakness. Meanwhile, Brown said Highly Motivated, 10th in the Derby, will be freshened and pointed to the Grade 3 Dwyer Stakes on July 5. * Rombauer, third in the Blue Grass Stakes in his last start, will have Flavien Prat aboard for the Preakness, trainer Michael McCarthy said Wednesday night. Rombauer won the El Camino Real Derby earlier this year, a race that offers a fees-paid berth into the Preakness. – additional reporting by David Grening and Jay Privman