LOUISVILLE – In the most shocking 1-2 finish in Kentucky Derby history, 50-1 Giacomo, ridden by Hall-of-Fame jockey Mike Smith, came rumbling down the stretch to post a monumental upset in yesterday’s 131st Run for the Roses by a neck over late-running 71-1 shot Closing Argument.
Afleet Alex, the 9-2 second choice, settled for third after looking like a winner in deep stretch. George Steinbrenner’s Bellamy Road, the 5-2 favorite, faded late after making a menacing move on the far turn but had no punch in the stretch, finishing seventh – one of five horses trained by Nick Zito that failed to hit the board.
California-based Giacomo, trained by John Shirreffs for record producer Jerry Moss, ran fourth in the Santa Anita Derby last out, and hasn’t won a race five previous starts since breaking his maiden last October.
The gray son of Holy Bull ran the mile-and-a-quarter in a tepid 2:02.3 to pay $102.60, keying a $9,814.80 exacta and a trifect worth $133,184.60. The superfecta paid an unbelievable $1.7 million.
In the week leading up to yesterday’s Derby, all roads on the Churchill backstretch led to Zito’s barn 36, outside of which he erected his “Great Wall of Zito,” a four-foot-high fence of PVC pipe designed to keep interlopers out and away from his precious thoroughbreds.
By 9:30 a.m. each morning, a crush of reporters and cameramen would be pressed up against the fence, straining to hear Zito, standing on a platform behind the Great Wall, answer the same questions over and over again. Nick, how are your horses doing? Nick, how do you handle five different owners? Nick, what are you going to do if you lose?
Throughout it all, Zito made one thing perfectly clear: Just getting to the Derby with five legitimate contenders was a great accomplishment. Anything beyond that – if he were “lucky and blessed” enough to win – was just gravy.
Each of Zito’s five runners took different routes to the big race.
Sun King, Zito’s sentimental favorite, was purchased at auction as a yearling for $400,000 by Tracy Farmer, one of Zito’s longtime clients, for whom he trained, among others, Jockey Club Gold Cup winner Albert the Great.
After finishing fourth in his debut at Saratoga, Sun King broke his maiden at Belmont Park, then went straight to Belmont’s Grade 1 Champagne Stakes, where he ran a strong third. He was then third again, beaten just a length, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
Off his 2-year-old campaign, Sun King began the year ranked No. 1 on The Post’s “Derby Dozen.” He won his first start as a 3-year-old by 5 3/4 lengths, then took the Tampa Bay Derby by 3 before running fourth in the Blue Grass.
Andromeda’s Hero was another expensive yearling, going for $310,000 to Robert LaPenta. Slow to come around, Andromeda’s Hero ran third first out at Keeneland last October, then won by seven lengths at Calder in December.
Two races later, Andromeda’s Hero won the Sam F. Davis at Tampa Bay, followed by a fifth in the Lanes End and a third in the Arkansas Derby, a solid-enough performance to earn a spot in the Derby gate.
The costliest of all Zito’s horse – by far the most expensive in this Derby, in fact – was Andromeda’s Hero, purchased as a yearling for $1,150,000 by Leonard Riggio, the chairman of Barnes & Noble.
Noble Causeway took a while to get his act together. Fifth in first time out racing on turf last October at Belmont, he was a late-running second twice at seven furlongs before finally finding his niche going two turns. In three straight races at a mile-and-an-eighth, he broke his maiden by two lengths, won an allowance by 3, then rallied for second in the Florida Derby.
High Fly and Bellamy Road, the two most accomplished horses of the five, were transferred from other trainers to Zito’s barn early this year.
High Fly, a homebred owned by Campbell’s Soup heiress Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Plantation, won his first three starts in runaways before finishing third as the 3-5 favorite in the Holy Bull last February for trainer Bill White. Weber then sent High Fly to Zito, and the colt proceeded to win the Fountain of Youth and Florida Derby.
Bellamy Road won his first two starts last summer for trainer Michael Dickinson, then came out of his only loss, a seventh in the Breeders Futurity, with sore shins.
At the suggestion of Edward Sexton, farm manager of Steinbrenner’s Kinsman Farm, the big colt went to Zito in January. He won his two Derby preps by a combined 33 lengths.
