Moments after the local mayor presented him with the Keys to the City, horse trainer Nick Zito stood outside his barn and suggested he just might have the keys to Saturday's Kentucky Derby, too, the New York Post reported Thursday.
He's firing two barrels -- Ice Box, a deep closer who came from last to win the Florida Derby, and Jackson Bend, a close-up stalker, who has finished second in three straight graded preps.
It's a long time since the old pro won a Derby -- 16 years since Go For Gin ran the field off their legs to score at 9-1 in 1994 -- but Zito thinks this edition is so evenly matched without any standouts that it opens the door for one or both of his contenders. "If you look at the form of both my horses, you'll see they're terrific," Zito said Wednesday.
They sure are. Zito's wealthy patron, Robert LaPenta, a technology whiz, bought Ice Box for $125,000 and already quadrupled his money.
Until last month, the chestnut colt looked little more than a handy oatburner, but then Zito tossed him into the Florida Derby and bingo! They struck gold.
Neither the stable nor the betting public had much confidence in Ice Box (he was sent off at 20-1). He left the gate 11th in a field of 11. And he stayed there for nearly the whole trip, a real drag.
But at the three-eighths pole, jockey Jose Lezcano swung him out and set him down, and Ice Box ran like Man o'War, passing horse after horse to snatch victory by a nose. It was a typical Zito big-race shocker.
But it was Ice Box's fractions that caught the eye. He ran the last three-eighths in :36.4 and the last eighth in :12.3 -- fractions fast enough to win most of the Derbys in the past 25 years.
Since arriving at Churchill Downs, Ice Box continued to shock. He reeled off a bullet work over 4 furlongs in a blazing :46.2. Zito has him primed. There are so many speedy up-front horses in the Derby that the race appears tailor-made for a late running colt like Ice Box.
"But he's going to have to get lucky," Zito cautioned.
The trainer likes his jockey almost as much as the horse.
"Jose is a young kid (Panamanian is 25) but he reminds me so much of Braulio Baeza and he's got a little bit of Laffit Pincay Jr. in him," Zito said. "I'm really high on this kid. I think he's got a great career ahead of him, to be one of the best jockeys around in the next couple of years."
The main knock against Ice Box is that he has not had a race since the Florida Derby six weeks ago. Generally, that would be a disadvantage coming into a knock-down brawl like the Derby over a gut-busting mile-and-a-quarter. Zito could not care less.
"Ah, we're over that," he said. "If he doesn't win, we won't blame the six weeks."
Summing up his chances for Saturday, Zito said, "This is a very compact field. There are no Big Browns in here."
