Zito Lands 1-2 Punch in Florida

Nick Zito kept running horses in the Florida Derby until he got it right. Winless with 16 starters in Gulfstream Park’s major Kentucky Derby prep, dating to 1991, the 57-year-old trainer ran 1-2 on Saturday as High Fly won the $1-million race, crossing the finish line 1 1/2 lengths ahead of stablemate Noble Causeway.

Zito won the Kentucky Derby twice in the early 1990s, with Go For Gin and Strike The Gold, but both were beaten in the Florida Derby. He won the 1996 Preakness with Louis Quatorze, who also wasn’t good enough at Gulfstream. Now, after Saturday’s wipeout of seven other horses, Zito will go to the Kentucky Derby with High Fly and Noble Causeway, who might not even be the best 3-year-olds in the barn. If Zito’s Sun King wins the Blue Grass on April 16, he probably will become the Derby favorite, and Zito plans to run Bellamy Road, a fourth Derby contender, in the Wood Memorial next Saturday.

Jerry Bailey, who had been aboard six of Zito’s up-the-track finishers in the Florida Derby, confidently rode High Fly to victory. Bailey rode High Fly for the first time a month ago, when they teamed to win the Fountain of Youth here. That was the first time Zito had saddled the horse. The colt’s owner-breeder, Charlotte Weber of Live Oak Stud in Lexington, Ky., switched to Zito after Bill White, another of her trainers, had cared for High Fly through his first four starts.

“When it’s your turn, it’s your turn,” said Bailey, referring to Zito’s career-long Florida Derby slump. “Ten years ago, I won seven races on Florida Derby day, but in the Florida Derby I got beat by a nose on one of Nick’s horses.”

You can look it up, and if you did it was the Bailey-ridden Suave Prospect who actually lost by a neck to Thunder Gulch, the eventual Kentucky Derby winner, in the 1995 Florida Derby. Zito started three horses that year.

The 54th edition of the Florida Derby was not a power-packed bunch. Two of the better horses who might have challenged the Zito pair, Bandini and Closing Argument, were injured and unable to run.

But Bailey, who won his third Florida Derby, suggested that High Fly shouldn’t be downsized for the company he kept.

“He’s won five out of six, and he might be undefeated,” Bailey said. “The only race he lost, he had a wide trip. If he was undefeated, what would the buzz be? He’d be like another Smarty Jones [last year’s unbeaten Kentucky Derby winner], and we’d be asking about what kind of horses have been behind him.”

Favored High Fly paid $4.40 and Noble Causeway, the second choice at 3-1, helped account for a $16.80 payoff for a $2 exacta bet. High Fly ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:49 2/5 . Only two of the previous six runnings of the race were faster, but comparative times are largely irrelevant at Gulfstream, which under a $140-million remake has gone from a mile to a 1 1/8 -mile oval with a short run to the first turn.

Finishing behind Zito’s horses, in order, were B.B. Best, Park Avenue Ball, Mighty Mecke, Ciarage, Papi Chullo, Evil Minister and Wallstreet Scandal. The crowd of 9,905 was one of the smallest ever for a Florida Derby.

Zito was ecstatic after the race. The native New Yorker, a candidate for election into the Racing Hall of Fame this year, didn’t win his signature home-state races, the Belmont and the Travers, until Birdstone came through last year.

“It’s a great win,” Zito said. “But you need good horses. It’s the horses that get you home. I’m very proud of the way both horses ran. They both can go [the Derby distance of 1 1/4 miles]. No question. I kissed Hank Goldberg [the ABC broadcaster] on national TV. I’ll never live that down.”

B.B. Best, ridden by Jorge Chavez, set the pace, knocking off fractions of :22 4/5 , :45 4/5 and 1:09 2/5 , with High Fly closest all the while. At the top of the stretch, High Fly moved to the lead, as Noble Causeway, who had been sixth after a half-mile under Edgar Prado, was also putting in his run. Bailey hand-rode his mount to the wire; there was never the thought that Zito’s other horse might overtake them.

“This horse is very impressive to me,” Bailey said. “I didn’t know where Noble Causeway was, but I knew it would take a super effort to overtake me.”

Zito said that High Fly won’t run again before the Kentucky Derby, which is five weeks away. A Derby hasn’t been won by a horse with that much rest since Needles in 1956. It’s possible that Noble Causeway, who had never run in a stakes race before and had broken his maiden only two months ago, might start one more time before Churchill Downs.

Zito knows about the Needles thing.

“High Fly is a horse who had a 94-degree temperature just a week ago, so he showed a lot of heart today,” the raspy-voiced trainer said. “Maybe we’ll show that you can win the Derby with a five-week layoff. Look at Birdstone last year. He won the Travers, and he hadn’t run in three months.”

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Trainer Todd Pletcher, who finished sixth in the Florida Derby with Vicarage, won three other stakes on the card: With Honey Ryder in the $150,000 Orchid Handicap, Navesink River in the $150,000 Pan American Handicap and Value Plus in the $100,000 Artax Handicap. John Velazquez rode all three.... The $100,000 Skip Away Handicap was won by Eurosilver.