THOROUGHBRED RACING : Zito Still Has High Aspirations

Nick Zito is ready to concede Horse of the Year to Holy Bull, if he wins the $500,000 Woodward on Super Saturday at Belmont Park.

If he doesn’t?

“If Go for Gin wins, why isn’t that a big deal?” the trainer asked. “If Bull wins, I concede, but that hasn’t happened yet. And the year’s not over yet, either.”

Eight horses, all Grade I stakes winners, were entered on Thursday for the 1 1/8-mile Woodward, one of six Grade I stakes on the card Saturday at Belmont with prize money totaling more than $1.5 million.

The Zito-trained Go for Gin, winner of the Kentucky Derby, was made the early 9-2 second choice to Travers winner Holy Bull at 8-5. Holy Bull, trained by Jimmy Croll, will ship to Belmont Saturday morning from his home at Monmouth Park in New Jersey.

“Holy Bull is a wonderful horse,” Zito said. “But I think championships should be won in championship races. You remember the year the Raiders were 9-7, but when they got to the playoffs, they won all the big races.

“The only race Holy Bull has won like that was the Travers.”

Holy Bull finished a badly beaten 12th in the Kentucky Derby, then skipped the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, in which Go for Gin finished second to Tabasco Cat both times. Since the Derby, Holy Bull has won the Metropolitan Handicap, Dwyer, Haskell and Travers.

“I’m very confident with him,” Holy Bull’s rider, Mike Smith, said. “I know that if he runs his race, he’ll be a tough horse to beat.”

Croll has said the Woodward will be Holy Bull’s last race of the year, while most of the rest of the Eclipse Award contenders will go on to the Breeders’ Cup in November at Churchill Downs.

Also in the Woodward field will be defending champion Bertrando, 1993 Belmont Stakes winner Colonial Affair, Suburban winner Devil His Due, Pistols and Roses, Tinners Way and Brunswick. The 3-year-olds, Go for Gin and Holy Bull, will carry 121 pounds. The rest will carry 126.

The other races on the big card will be the $111,800 Futurity for 2-year-old colts, the $107,900 Matron for 2-year-old fillies, the seven-furlong Vosburgh at $200,000, the $200,000 Ruffian for fillies and mares, and the 1 3/8-mile Man o’War on grass.

The Ruffian Handicap, although drawing a smaller field, is nearly the equal of the Woodward in competitiveness. The favorite will be Sky Beauty, who was assigned the huge impost of 130 pounds, 17 more than the highly regarded Dispute.

“She’s getting up there now where it’s really tough,” said Sky Beauty’s trainer, H. Allen Jerkens, who also trains Devil His Due. “If she can carry that much weight and win on Saturday, she’s really special.”

Sky Beauty, a 4-year-old filly, has run 10 of her 16 career races at Belmont Park and won all 10.

Nine 2-year-olds were entered in the Futurity, including Hopeful winner Wild Escapade, and the Matron drew a field of six juvenile fillies, including D. Wayne Lukas’ highly regarded and unbeaten Flanders.

Jerkens also has a horse in the field of 11 entered for the Vosburgh, Virginia Rapids, and the Man o’War drew a field of nine, including 1992 Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Fraise, Fourstars Allstar and Solar Splendor.

“It’s a great day of racing, there’s no doubt about that,” Jerkens said.