Victor Espinoza will still travel to New York on Saturday to ride Much Better for trainer Bob Baffert in the seven-furlong Bay Shore at Aqueduct, but Dessman -- who had been considered for the Wood Memorial -- will not travel for that race, in which Espinoza would have ridden him, Baffert informed Monday night.
Baffert said that upon evaluating Dessman's workout earlier Monday at Santa Anita, it was not satisfactory to put him in a race like the Wood. Dessman most recently was second in an allowance race at Oaklawn on Rebel day, so the Wood would have been his second race in three weeks, both involving traveling.
Baffert said he was "not sure" where Dessman would run next.