A Triple Crown Hopeful Emerges and Athlete Workouts Get a J. Lo Cameo

the day in (no) sports Tiz the Law won the Florida Derby, a prep race for the Kentucky Derby, which now isn’t till September. And athletes are creating new ways of practicing on their own, with mixed results. The day in (no) sports includes (some) sports, as horse racing preps for a Triple Crown like no other. Elsewhere, athletes improvised workouts and enlisted workout partners, including a special appearance by J.

Lo. If you didn’t look too closely, the Florida Derby on Saturday was like a regular Florida Derby. Tiz the Law, the favorite after winning the Holy Bull Stakes in February, sat just off the pace, took the lead at the top of the stretch and pulled away for a comfortable victory. But a closer look revealed some irregularities.

The grandstand was not full of fans; just a handful of people watched along the rail, a reasonable social distance apart. The news media, and even the horse owners, were barred from Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Fla. As with most Florida Derby winners, like Spectacular Bid, Barbaro and Maximum Security last year, Tiz the Law was immediately hailed as a Kentucky Derby favorite. But the Kentucky Derby won’t be run on the first Saturday in May this year; it has been rescheduled for Sept.

5. Tiz the Law’s owner, Sackatoga Stable, which owned the 2003 Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide, has to find a new schedule to get its colt to the race in top form. The Preakness, originally set for two weeks after the Derby, has been postponed, possibly also to September. The Belmont is still on the calendar for June 6, but given the state of sports, and the world, a postponement seems quite likely.

If not, it may suddenly become the first leg of the Triple Crown, fully three months before the other two are run. Just finding races at all for Tiz the Law may be difficult. The three biggest racing jurisdictions, Southern California, Kentucky and New York, are currently shut down. That leaves Florida, Arkansas and a few other tracks in the United States, for now.

“Maybe we can do a Travers-Derby double,” the horse owner Jack Knowlton told The Associated Press, referring to the late August race at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N. Y. “Right now it’s a blank slate. Nobody knows what’s going to happen, where or when, with all that’s going on in the country.