Tony Dutrow has been among the leading trainers in the
country for many years, but it has only been recently that he’s had horses
competing on a bigger stage.
Dutrow, who saddled his first two New York Grade 1 winners
last year with Seattle Smooth in the Ogden Phipps and Cat Moves in the
Prioress, could be sitting on a very big day Saturday when he sends out Grade 2
Jim Dandy winner A Little Warm as the mild favorite in the Travers and
Grade 3 Bed o’ Roses winner Rightly So against filly sprint champion
Informed Decision in the Ballerina.
It’s an opportunity that he is cherishing to the fullest.
“We gathered up our whole crew and talked about these
opportunities that were facing us this summer and we all made the commitment to
each other and to the horses, that this could possibly be a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity and that we were all going to focus and try our very, very best to
accomplish such a goal,” said Dutrow, 52, the son of the late trainer Richard
Dutrow, Sr. and the older brother of trainers Rick and Chip Dutrow. “We still
have a lot of work to do, but we’re very proud and we’re really, really
enjoying this.”
So far this meet Dutrow, who counts among his bigger
successes Havre de Grace’s second-place finish to Blind Luck in the
Grade 1 Alabama, has sent out three winners, three second-place finishers and
four third-place finishers from 19 starters heading into Thursday’s card.
“Out stable is successful; is it as successful as some
others? No, it’s not,” said Dutrow, who sent out 85 winners in 2009 who earned
more than $3.9 million. “But we’re trying.”