Ma Doesn’t Always Know Best : Kentucky Derby: Zito gets advice--that he ignores--to keep quiet and let Thirty Six Red win at Churchill Downs.

On Thursday night, trainer Nick Zito got a phone call from his mother in New York.

“Will you shut up and just win the race,” was her advice.

Zito, one of eight trainers running horses in the Kentucky Derby for the first time, has a lot to say and he has gone right on saying it this week at Churchill Downs. Every day his mother picks up a New York newspaper, Zito’s opinions about his horse, Thirty Six Red, and the rest of the Derby field are plastered all over it.

Zito, 42, admits that he has been overly verbose going into the 116th Derby, which will be run today, no matter how much more rain Louisville gets.

Zito has a distinctive voice--he sounds sort of like a cross between Andy Devine and Aldo Ray--but he’s not hoarse. He has talked that way since his tonsils were taken out when he was a kid.

“I haven’t put any pressure on the horse, but I’ve probably put pressure on myself,” Zito said. “I’ve got an in-between horse and he hasn’t gotten too much press otherwise. When I first got here, I was doing all right. But then I started talking.”

Zito was standing under Thirty Six Red’s shed row, out of the rain that has been a regular part of Churchill Downs this week. He was wearing a red University of Louisville baseball cap and a black University of Iowa sweat shirt, neither of which had anything to do with where he grew up, in Queens in New York.

Everyone here has an opinion about the Derby--that’s what makes the 1 1/4-mile test as close as anything to America’s race--but Zito is more specific than most people.

“The first three will be Thirty Six Red, Summer Squall and Burnt Hills, hanging on,” Zito said, as though anyone listening ought to run to the mutuel windows with the family fortune.

Thirty Six Red is Zito’s horse, so that selection is not surprising. Summer Squall, who has won seven of eight starts, is the 7-5 favorite. But Zito doesn’t have Mister Frisky, winner of all 16 of his races and the 8-5 second choice, hitting the board.

“I’d be stupid if I had Mister Frisky in the money,” Zito said. “If my horse wins, how can Mister Frisky be up there, too?”

Zito does, however, see Mister Frisky prominent in the early part of the race.

“I hope my horse gets open going down the backstretch,” he said. “If we’re first or second, we’ll be OK. I figure Mister Frisky might be third, in what they call the garden spot.”

Zito apparently doesn’t figure Mister Frisky will be able to handle the distance, which all 15 Derby 3-year-olds are being asked to run for the first time. The field was reduced by one on Friday when Country Day, a 50-1 shot, came back from a three-furlong workout with either a muscle tear or a crack in his right foreleg.

Thirty Six Red will be ridden by Mike Smith, a former standout at Churchill Downs who has been successful in New York since moving East late last year. Smith, 24, began his riding career with quarter horses in his native New Mexico, and he has won with Thirty Six Red the only two times they’ve been together: in the Gotham at Aqueduct on April 7 and in the Wood Memorial there two weeks later. Both times Thirty Six Red was a longshot, 33-1 and 7-1, and he’s 10-1 in the Derby.

His post position--No. 11--does not help.

“There’s a long run to the first turn, so maybe we can get (a forward) position,” Zito said. “The outside might not be too bad if a few of those horses on the inside would start to act up. I’ll tell Mike to use his Ruidoso Downs (quarter horse) experience to get the horse over close to the rail.”

Thirty Six Red ran 10 times before Zito used the Wood as the colt’s first two-turn race. That might have been indicative that the trainer thought his horse had distance limitations.

“That wasn’t it,” Zito said. “I didn’t stretch him out because I didn’t want to wear him out. He’s run seven furlongs a lot, and that’s a good distance, because you can run a horse anywhere (in distance) after he’s used to that.”

The weather has been changing by the hour. On Friday, there was heavy rain during the morning workouts, then sunshine, then a steady rain in the early afternoon followed by clearing. The track went from muddy to sloppy to muddy again. The forecast is for temperatures in the 60s and a 50% chance of rain today, with a muddy track favoring Summer Squall and Mister Frisky.

Summer Squall would be one of the smaller Derby winners. The horse may weigh 950 pounds, tops, and in recent weeks has lost weight. Cot Campbell, manager of the 28-member syndicate that owns Summer Squall, concedes he’d be more comfortable if the horse was carrying 30 more pounds.

Summer Squall, coming off a hairline fracture as a 2-year-old and a bleeding problem this winter, had to run three tightly scheduled races to get here--the Swale at Gulfstream Park on March 17, the Jim Beam at Turfway Park on March 31 and the Blue Grass at Keeneland on April 14. He ran second to Housebuster, a sprinter who’s not running in the Derby, in the Swale and won the two other stakes.

“There’s nothing you can do about his size,” trainer Neil Howard said of Summer Squall. “God’s put him here the way he is. He’s just a lightly made-type horse. A big deal’s being made out of it, but there’s nothing this horse can’t do.”

If Summer Squall runs in the Derby the way his grandfather, Secretariat, did, his camp won’t have to defend his lackluster appearance. Secretariat not only won the Derby but swept the Triple Crown in 1973.

POST POSITIONS

Pos. Horse Jockey Trainer 1. Dr. Bobby A. Nick Santagata Stephen Di Mauro 2. Killer Diller Jamie Bruin Frank Alexander 3. a-Pendleton Ridge Laffit Pincay Bobby Frankel 4. Video Ranger Ron Hansen Ian Jory 5. Mister Frisky Gary Stevens Laz Barrera 6. b-Real Cash Alex Solis Wayne Lukas 7. Fighting Fantasy Shane Sellers John Churchman Jr. 8. Unbridled Craig Perret Carl Nafzger 9. Pleasant Tap Kent Desormeaux Chris Speckert 10. Silver Ending Chris McCarron Ron McAnally 11. Thirty Six Red Mike Smith Nick Zito 12. a-Burnt Hills Pat Valenzuela Bobby Frankel 13. Summer Squall Pat Day Neil Howard 14. b-Land Rush Angel Cordero Wayne Lukas 15. b-Power Lunch Randy Romero Wayne Lukas

a-Bobby Frankel trained entry; b-Wayne Lukas trained entry Country Day, which drew the eighth position Thursday, was scratched Friday.

Weights: Each 126 pounds. Distance: 1 1/4 miles. Post time: 2:32 p.m. PDT.