BALTIMORE — The jockey Mario Gutierrez finished his morning news conference, conducted on a platform with a microphone and speakers, and immediately scanned the crowd for his wife, Rebecca. She is his biggest fan and confidante, the person whom he most wants to make happy — not the trainer Doug O’Neill, not the owner Paul Reddam, not even Nyquist.
The couple held hands and chatted as they made their way from the backstretch to the clubhouse for an annual Preakness Week breakfast that fetes the Kentucky Derby winner above all. Gutierrez, who rode the undefeated Nyquist to victory, is at the top of his sport, and it was Rebecca who helped him get back there after he had lost his way.