Determining when to gallop and when to breeze (horse-speak for a hard workout), the distance of those runs and their intensity, and when not to do them is the racing-horse trainer’s job. But such decisions aren’t simple ones to make. “Horses don’t talk,” Brisset said. “That’s the only thing they do different from us. So you’ve got to read the signs. You’ve got to let them tell you. And then you come up with a plan.”

Quip’s training plan began four years earlier at WinStar Farm, 10 miles outside of Lexington, in Versailles, Ky. The farm consists of 2,700 acres of rolling hills, lush grazing fields, black synthetic racetracks and breeding sheds, and is dotted with ponds and stone-lined bridges. It’s idyllic for a human, and presumably for a horse, too. Quip was conceived there, both literally and conceptually.

Every fall, “there’s about four of us that get in the boardroom and spend eight hours a day trying to make a Derby winner,” said Sean Tugel, WinStar’s director of bloodstock services. “We sit down with the pedigree analysts. We study what blood works with what blood in mares and stallions, and we try to breed the best.”

The pairing that produced Quip matched Distorted Humor, a now 26-year-old stallion, with Princess Ash, a 9-year-old former sprinter. Distorted Humor had already sired a Kentucky Derby winner, Funny Cide, the 2003 champion; Princess Ash’s father, Indian Charlie, had a breeding line that was performing well. Quip is Princess Ash’s first offspring.