Jockey Shuffle Ends Bright as Day for Zito

A few days before the Preakness, trainer Nick Zito was having trouble believing he had actually backed into the services of Pat Day for Louis Quatorze.

“This is a legitimate Hall of Fame jockey,” Zito said. “He’s one of the great ones, and he hasn’t lost a step. I got chills when I heard that he was available.”

Zito might have heard sooner if Day’s agent, Doc Danner, had a phone. In California, jockeys’ agents are hard to miss--they have home phones, cellular phones, beeper numbers, answering machines, 800 numbers--but Danner, who works out of the Midwest for Day, operates only with a beeper. Don’t call him, he’ll call you. Consequently, after Day had been taken off his Preakness mount, Prince Of Thieves, by trainer Wayne Lukas, Danner spent most of the Sunday and Monday of Preakness week trying to reach Zito at his Belmont Park barn.

The mount on Louis Quatorze might have gone to Mike Smith, who had won with the colt, but Smith was hung up because the handlers of Unbridled’s Song didn’t announce until four days before the Preakness that their sore-footed colt was out of the race. By the time Smith became available, Danner had already contacted Zito and secured the mount for Day.

Zito had a jockey who had won four Preaknesses. The trainer thought about that a lot in the days before last Saturday’s race. One day, Zito said: “If he can’t deliver a fifth, will I go to the owners and say, ‘Let’s fire him’? I don’t think so.”

By rights, Day should have been sacked by Lukas after his ride aboard Prince Of Thieves in the Lexington Stakes, two weeks before the Kentucky Derby. Instead, he got his marching orders after a third-place finish in the Derby, when Jerry Bailey became available.

Bailey’s Preakness mount on Prince Of Thieves might have been his reward for his matchless ride on Grindstone, another Lukas horse, in the Derby.

When Lukas’ ax fell, it came a race later than Day thought it would. At Keeneland, Prince Of Thieves was the best horse but lost by a nose to City By Night in the Lexington after Day unnecessarily played footsy with two rivals in the stretch.

After the Lexington, Lukas said, “This ride won’t exactly be included on any Pat Day highlights film.”

Day was as good in the Preakness as he had been bad at Keeneland.

“My ride was questioned severely in the Lexington,” Day said after he won his fifth Preakness. “And understandably so. I was fortunate to get the ride back on the horse in the Derby.”

Zito, 48, has been a racetracker since he was 15 and knows of nothing else he would do, but it saddens him to contrast today’s game with the one that used to be. More than many horsemen, who are content to crank out a living, even though there is much they don’t like to see, Zito seems to desperately need the highs that the Derby and Preakness victories bring.

“The sport of kings has died,” said Zito, introspective once more in a pre-Preakness conversation. “Maybe it’s the sport of princes now, but for sure it isn’t the sport of kings anymore. I’m glad Pat’s on my horse, but he’s getting the chance because the respect factor isn’t there. There’s no loyalty in racing.

“Instead of listening to his trainer, the owner is his own worst enemy. There’s too much jumping around by the jockeys too. The only strength a trainer has depends on how good his horse is.

“To give Wayne his due, though, he’s just a product of the society. Look at Don Shula with the Dolphins. A great coach, right? Yet with one year left on his contract, they had to show him the door. Didn’t that man deserve the respect of finishing out his contract? Couldn’t they have given him that last year, and then let him go out with dignity?”

Chris McCarron had ridden Louis Quatorze as recently as three weeks before the Derby, finishing second with him in the Blue Grass, but he stuck with his Santa Anita Derby winner, Cavonnier. They missed beating Grindstone by a nose in the Kentucky Derby, then ran fourth in the Preakness. Zito was disappointed that McCarron didn’t ride Louis Quatorze back in the Derby.

“Did the Pat Day thing surprise me?” McCarron said before the Preakness. “Yes and no. Yes, because Pat had ridden Prince Of Thieves twice and knows the horse. No, because everything Jerry [Bailey] has touched has come up smelling like roses--literally.”

Bailey, who had won two consecutive races with Louis Quatorze when he was a 2-year-old, finished seventh in the Preakness with Prince Of Thieves. Louis Quatorze had been passed around by jockeys--Chris Antley rode him to a 16th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby--and for all the right reasons: He was the first non-stakes winner to win the Preakness since Gate Dancer in 1984.

The only horse with a shot at Louis Quatorze at Pimlico was Skip Away, who finished second under Shane Sellers, beaten by 3 1/4 lengths. Sellers, 29, has become No. 1 on the Kentucky circuit, a position Pat Day held for more than a dozen years.

“It’s fantastic that Pat wound up winning the Preakness,” Sellers said. “I’m so happy for him. And you know what? I think that somebody upstairs had something to do with it.”

Horse Racing Notes

Pat Day was riding Blow Out, the seventh-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, when the colt broke down near the five-sixteenths pole in a race at Churchill Downs on Thursday. Day jumped off and retained control of Blow Out, but the colt broke his left foreleg and was given a lethal injection. . . . Day is expected to ride Awad on Monday in the $500,000 Hollywood Turf Handicap. . . . Northern Spur, the 123-pound high weight in the race, may run in the Arc de Triomphe, France’s most prestigious race, in Paris on Oct. 5, according to the Daily Racing Form. . . . Jewel Princess, who beat Serena’s Song at Churchill Downs in her last start, will carry high weight of 120 pounds and break from the inside post Saturday in the $100,000 Hawthorne Handicap at Hollywood Park. Others entered in the 1 1/16-mile race are Sleep Easy, Klassy Kim, Rhythninjava, Borodislew, Cat’s Cradle and Urbane. . . . Eddie Delahoussaye, who rode Mr Purple to victory in the Santa Anita Handicap, has decided to ride Tinners Way in the $250,000 Californian on June 2. Corey Nakatani will ride Mr Purple.