Mind Control, the multiple stakes-winning 3-year-old, will skip the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers on Feb. 2 and will point to the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham at Aqueduct on March 9, his connections said Wednesday.

Rick Sacco, the racing manager for Stephen Brunetti’s Red Oak Stable, said he felt the horse would benefit from having a little more time between races. Also, the Gotham is a one-turn mile, a configuration that Mind Control won the $150,000 Jerome Stakes at on New Year’s Day. The Withers is a two-turn, 1 1-8-mile race. The Gotham winner earns 50 points toward the Kentucky Derby.

In addition to winning the Jerome around one turn, Mind Control won last summer’s Grade 1 Hopeful, a one-turn, seven-furlong race, at Saratoga.

“The colt has run five times at five different racetracks,” Sacco said. “The Kentucky Derby is always in the back of everybody’s mind, we’re not necessarily enamored by that. He’s a neat horse, a sound horse. He’s coming off the best race of his life speed-figure wise, we were really pleased with that effort but we just want to give him a little bit more time.”

On Wednesday, Mind Control worked an easy half-mile in 49.25 seconds over the Belmont training track.

Trainer Gregg Sacco said Mind Control is “doing super” and that if all goes well in the Gotham, Mind Control could run 1 1-8 miles in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial on April 6.

“He’ll be really strong for the Gotham off two months again, the layoff time is not an issue for him,” Gregg Sacco said.

Mind Control won the Jerome off a two-month layoff following a seventh-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs.