In his return to Pimlico Race Course, jockey Mario Gutierrez has been asked to compare his mount in Saturday's Preakness, the undefeated Nyquist, to I'll Have Another, the 2012 Kentucky Derby and Preakness champion.
Perhaps more important are the differences between the Mario Gutierrez of 2012 and 2016.
After I'll Have Another — like Nyquist, trained by Doug O'Neill — was scratched from the Belmont Stakes, a tendon injury ending their Triple Crown bid, Gutierrez's career leveled off. His earnings slipped, and he moved on to a new agent.
His wife, Rebecca, recommended he consult a sports psychologist. After one session, he signed up for 10 more, he told the Vancouver Sun.
"It's like going to the gym," Gutierrez said Thursday. "You get a strength and conditioning coach; he trains your body. The sports psychologist trains my brain and prepares me for this kind of stuff."
Falling from 40th to 61st to 100th in earnings from 2012-14, Gutierrez rebounded to No. 29 overall last year. Halfway through this year, he's less than $1 million off his career-best mark.
"It's kind of like: Try to picture the best way possible, how things are going to be here," he said of what he has learned from the therapy. "Not too much about the race, because the minute that I'm going to get on the track with Nyquist, it's just another race. It's a very important race, but it's just like another race."