Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito reflected on his unique 2010
Triple Crown experience Sunday morning following the 142
nd running
of the Belmont Stakes, in which he saddled late-running second-place finisher
Fly
Down and favored
Ice Box, who finished ninth.
Zito said he believed he was the first trainer to hit the
board in all three Triple Crown races with three different horses – Ice Box was
second in the Kentucky Derby and Jackson Bend finished third in the Preakness.
Both of Zito’s Belmont starters came out of the race in good
order.
“Ice Box, we scoped him after the race and he was clean. He
had no blood, and no mucus,” Zito said. “However, he did displace, he flipped
his palette. He’s an excitable horse – he’s a Pulpit, he’s out of a Tabasco Cat
mare. It was very, very hot down here, we didn’t catch a break that way. The
last two days he was ready to explode, he was ready to do something, and he
probably left his race somewhere else other than the track.
“Fly Down he ran a great race. Obviously a lot of people
give Mike Smith [riding Drosselmeyer] credit – rightfully so – because he kept
him in. [Fly Down] couldn’t get clear until the very end, and you saw what he
did in the lane. It was remarkable how he got second. As soon as he got clear,
he beat First Dude, again. Terrific horse.”
Zito has saddled 24 Belmont
starters, winning the race twice: in 2004 with Birdstone and 2008 with Da’
Tara, both Triple Crown upsets. Fly Down was Zito’s seventh Belmont Stakes
runner-up and the trainer also owns two third-place finishes in the race.
Zito was looking ahead to Saratoga for Richard Pell’s Fly Down, with an
eye to the Travers on August 28, a race he said he would also consider for
Jackson Bend. Robert LaPenta is the majority owner of Wood Memorial runner-up
Jackson Bend, and also owns Ice Box.
“I’d like to go straight to the Haskell [Grade 1, Monmouth
Park, August 1] with Ice Box because if he gets any kind of pace, he’s a much
better horse. We’ll see what Mr. LaPenta wants to do, but he’s still one of the
better three-year-olds around. He had a legitimate excuse yesterday. I think
the ultimate goal is to probably get them all in the Breeders’ Cup, then work
our way backwards from there.
“You gotta be content, you gotta be thankful to have horses
running in these races and we did. We had three different horses that ran
unbelievable.”