Trust N Luck Fills the Void

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. — A blundering, unknowing reporter asked Paul and Joyce Robsham, married all of 53 years, about their grandchildren. Their eyes quickly welled up with tears. They lost their only children, a college-age son and a daughter, in an automobile accident about 20 years ago.

“The boy was a freshman at Boston College,” Paul Robsham said, and then it became painful for him to recall any more details.

One of the reasons he and his wife started buying horses, Paul Robsham said, was to dilute the heartbreak and transport their troubled minds to a better level.

The Robshams’ trainer, a gentle bear of a man named Ralph Ziadie, also cried -- from joy -- when their 3-year-old colt, Trust N Luck, won the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park last month.

That 5 1/4-length win, Trust N Luck’s first in a graded race and his fifth in nine starts, has made the chestnut son of Montbrook and Bold Burst the 2-1 second choice, behind Empire Maker at 9-5, on the morning line for Saturday’s $1-million Florida Derby.

When Trust N Luck has won, he has forged to the front early and stayed there, and while that running style -- last year’s win by War Emblem notwithstanding -- is usually not conducive to winning the 1 1/4-mile Kentucky Derby, it sometimes works in the Florida Derby, which is shorter by an eighth of a mile.

“I’m going to try to be more relaxed if we win Saturday,” Ziadie said. “I might ask my wife [Terry] to give me a tranquilizer.”

Asked if he had ever cried after winning a race before, the 64-year-old Ziadie harked back to two teary winner’s circles, after Royal Crest won the Jamaican Derby in his home country in 1971, and after Sir Bear won the Metropolitan Handicap Mile at Belmont Park in 1999.

The Miami-based Ziadie has never had a starter in the Kentucky Derby, but his profile finally went national because of Sir Bear, the durable gelding who was past the $2.5-million mark in purses when he was retired, at age 10, several weeks ago.

In the Ziadie barn, the arrival of Trust N Luck has made for a timely replacement for Sir Bear. Paul Robsham, a retired Massachusetts real estate executive, sent Ziadie to a horse auction in Ocala, Fla., last year with a $200,000 bankroll and the suggestion he spread it over two or three horses. But when Ziadie saw Trust N Luck, an unraced 2-year-old, and the bidding wouldn’t stop, he found himself risking all of Robsham’s cash on one purchase. There were at least two other interested parties, one in the sales pavilion with Ziadie and the other a bloodstock group bidding on the phone from Kentucky.

After Ziadie bumped the price to $200,000, he wasn’t sure what he would have done had the bidding continued. But his on-site rival dropped out and the phone line from Kentucky inexplicably went dead. The bloodstock outfit had lost its connection, and Ziadie swears that he didn’t snip the cord.

“This was the best-looking horse I’ve ever seen,” Ziadie said.

Trust N Luck has earned more than $500,000, three of his four losses were brought on by problems leaving the gate but his last two wins, both at 1 1/16 miles, have been flawless. The combined margin was 16 1/4 lengths, and the Robshams reportedly have turned down a $5-million offer for the colt. This is the time of the year when the bushes are brimming with other Kentucky Derby dreamers, who no doubt are further fueled by the memory of the late Prince Ahmed Salman of Saudi Arabia spending $900,000 to buy War Emblem, who won the 2002 Derby less than three weeks later.

A third-generation horseman, Ziadie is halfway toward becoming the only trainer to win the derby in Jamaica and Kentucky. He took out his first training license when he was 18, but when he came to Florida in 1977, his wife suggested a career change. “The racetrack life was going to make it hard to bring up children,” Terry Ziadie said.

The Ziadies opened up what he calls a Jewish delicatessen in Miami, but they sold the place a few years later as Ralph shifted to selling cars. He sold enough Dodges to work himself up to general manager, but the distributorship was located across the street from Calder Race Course, and Ziadie found himself drifting over to the track between customers. “It was in my blood,” he said. He took out his Florida trainer’s license in 1985, and now the Ziadies’ middle son, Kirk, is his father’s assistant trainer.

“I think Ralph’s the best trainer in Florida,” Paul Robsham said, “and he’s more than just a trainer. He’s a dear friend.”

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From trainer Bob Baffert’s barn comes the report that Kafwain will run in the Santa Anita Derby on April 5; During is headed for the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct on April 12; and Spensive will run in either the Lane’s End at Turfway Park on March 22 or the WinStar at Sunland Park on March 30.... Baffert is running Domestic Dispute in Sunday’s San Felipe at Santa Anita.... Ten Most Wanted’s next start will be the Illinois Derby at Hawthorne on April 5.