Even a Double Dose Isn’t Enough

For 18 years, from the time he took out his first trainer’s license, Nick Zito thirsted to run a horse in the Kentucky Derby. Then he won one, on his second try, with Strike The Gold in 1991. Then he didn’t have horses in the next two, and it drove him crazy.

“I remember the year [1993] that [trainer] Mack Miller won,” Zito said Monday morning at Churchill Downs, safe in his shedrow from the steady rain. “I watched at home on TV. I thought Sea Hero had a good chance. Right then and there, I told myself that I’d be back there next year.”

Zito returned with trumpets. Go For Gin never won another race, but on May 7, 1994, he was the best horse for a sloppy track at Churchill Downs, and he and jockey Chris McCarron gave Zito his second Derby victory.

It’s a small club. In the 124 years of the Derby, only 17 trainers have won more than one, headed by Ben Jones with six from 1938 through 1952.

Three of the multiple Derby-winning trainers are in Saturday’s race, and they’re all taking multiple shots. Zito is running Stephen Got Even and Adonis, Wayne Lukas will saddle Cat Thief and Charismatic, and Bob Baffert will run General Challenge and Prime Timber, and maybe even the filly Excellent Meeting, as he tries to become the first trainer to win three consecutive Derbies. Zito could catch Lukas by winning a third Derby.

“Hey, Nick,” somebody said to Zito the other morning. “You’re in the same barn [No. 42] as Secretariat. He was in stall 21.”

Zito looked over at Stephen Got Even, in stall 22. He thought a moment about moving the colt to No. 21, then shook his head.

“Nah,” Zito said. “I’ll move him after the race. He’s a nice horse, but he’s not in Secretariat’s class yet.”

Three races away from winning the Triple Crown that was Secretariat’s in 1973, Stephen Got Even would appear to be Zito’s best chance Saturday, having won the Gallery Furniture Stakes--the old Jim Beam, at Turfway Park--100 miles up the road in Florence, Ky., five weeks ago. But Adonis is more than just along for the ride. He ran sixth in the Florida Derby in March, Zito excusing the result because of a wide trip in his first stakes start, and then came back April 10 to win the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct.

“They both ran big,” Zito said. “I know the recent history says different, but I like the idea they’re both here with wins last time.”

Surprisingly, of the last nine Kentucky Derby winners, eight came into the race off losing performances.

“The exception was Strikey [Strike The Gold],” Zito said. “He came here after winning the Blue Grass at Keeneland.”

Go For Gin’s last Derby prep was a second-place finish in the Wood. On the day of this year’s Wood, Zito was at Keeneland, watching Wondertross, more highly regarded than Adonis, run a poor sixth in the Blue Grass. Wondertross flipped his palate, then was found to have colic--stomach trouble--the next day. He spent three days in a clinic at Lexington, Ky., but is back and galloping again. Zito would like to consider him for the Preakness on May 15, but admits that that would be rushing the colt.

Adonis has won three of five starts and will be ridden by Jorge Chavez. Shane Sellers, who rode Stephen Got Even in the win at Turfway, is sticking with Vicar, so Zito put in a call to California and drafted McCarron, who had already won a Derby with Alysheba in 1987 when he clicked with Go For Gin seven years later.

Busy at Hollywood Park, McCarron made a hurried trip to Kentucky for Stephen Got Even’s workout Saturday.

“Nick knows how to bring a horse up to the Derby,” McCarron said after Stephen Got Even, a son of 1992 horse-of-the-year A.P. Indy, worked five furlongs in 1:02 2/5. “This colt has a very efficient stride. There’s no wasted action. He covers the ground beautifully, and there’s something else I like about him: He has a good mind. He takes it all in and enjoys being on the track. I’ve found that horses with this kind of attitude are the most productive.”

Nicholas Philip Zito, 51, is a Queens (N.Y.) guy who will be in his eighth Derby. While some Derby trainers will be expense-accounting at places like the deluxe Seelbach Hotel, where the wild-game grille consists of ostrich, boar and pheasant, Zito’s style is Wagner’s Pharmacy, across the street from Churchill Downs.

Wagner’s, a Louisville institution, is a third-generation drug store and lunch counter, where one of Zito’s favorites is the vegetable-beef soup. Since the last Derby, Wagner’s has relocated, but only a few doors down Fourth Street.

“I get in there about every other day,” Zito said. “Nice people. And hey, did you see the new place! Look at all the extra room they got! Boy, will they be doing the business now.”

Zito’s father took him to the races and he was hooked by the time he was 12. While still a teenager, he was walking horses after workouts for another New York guy, trainer Buddy Jacobson. Zito worked as an assistant for Johnny Campo, winner of the 1981 Derby with Pleasant Colony, and for LeRoy Jolley, who had Derby winners Foolish Pleasure in 1975 and Genuine Risk in 1980, before his head-training career began in 1972. Why Zito has yet to be listed on the Racing Hall of Fame ballot is not easily explained.

“You got to have the horses to get to this race,” Zito says of the Derby. “It’s a race that was inside me for 25 years before I got here. I’m been lucky and blessed. I’ve got owners who go to the [horse] sales at the highest levels. There are a lot of great trainers who’ve never been in the Derby. A lot of great ones who, if they got here, would be able to do what I’ve done.”

If Adonis or Stephen Got Even wins Saturday, Zito will scream himself hoarse during the stretch run, loosen his necktie and go to the obligatory champagne toast in the Kentucky Derby Museum. But if he had his druthers, the party would be over at Wagner’s Pharmacy, where sipping vegetable-beef soup with a rose between your teeth is not out of line.

Horse Racing Notes

Because of rain, Nick Zito held off on Adonis’ scheduled Monday workout. . . . To beat the rain, Wayne Lukas worked his contenders before 7 a.m., with Cat Thief turning in 1:02 for five furlongs and Charismatic working in 1:02 4/5. . . . K One King’s workout time was 1:02 2/5. . . . First American was clocked in 1:03 and Ecton Park’s time was 1:01 3/5. . . . Certain, working later, was timed in 1:13 2/5 over a muddy track and his trainer, Leo Azpurua Jr., will decide today whether to run him in the Derby.

Derby Facts

The 125th running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday:

TV: Ch. 7

Post time: 2:30 p.m. PDT. (Television coverage begins at 1:30 p.m.)