With five horses in Derby field, Zito can't put finger on favorite

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It was the simplest of questions: Where are you going to sit Saturday?

But Nick Zito stopped and smiled when a reporter asked it yesterday because, for him, the question wasn't simple at all.

"Oh, I'll be all alone," the 57-year-old New Yorker rasped. "I'll be off by myself somewhere."

That's funny. As trainer of five of the 20 horses in the 2005 Kentucky Derby, including favored Bellamy Road, Zito is the centerpiece of horse racing's biggest show this year; he can barely take a step without being stopped to talk or shake a hand. But when the starting gate opens Saturday, he'll be walled off from the world.

He has no choice. Each of his five horses has a different owner paying for his best effort. He can't shortchange any of them. He can't play favorites.

He can't sit with George Steinbrenner, owner of Bellamy Road, during the race. What about the others?

He can't walk with Leonard Riggio - chairman of the board of Barnes and Noble, and owner of Noble Causeway - from the barn to the starting gate before the race. What about the others?

He can't cheer alongside Charlotte Weber, a Florida farm owner and breeder/owner of High Fly. What about the others?

"It does create some interesting logistical situations," said Zito, who won the Derby with Strike the Gold in 1991 and Go For Gin in 1994.

Does he, for instance, have time to saddle all five horses in the paddock before the race?

"Absolutely," Zito said.

What about time to give final instructions to five jockeys?

"I'll start handling that a few days ahead of time," he conceded. "They're all good jockeys. They know what to do, anyway."

In Derby history, which dates back to 1875, no trainer has ever started five horses for five different owners in the same year. D. Wayne Lukas started five in 1996, including the winner, Grindstone, but they belonged to four owners. Todd Pletcher started four in 2000.

Most trainers don't have five Derby horses in their entire careers.

"For me to feel anything other than blessed, grateful and humble would be an absolute joke," Zito said. "This will never happen again. I don't see how it could."

He trained three of the five from the start of their careers and picked up the other two this year. Combined, they have won five major Derby prep races, including the Florida Derby and Wood Memorial, and 10 of 17 starts overall in 2005.

Zito-trained horses were four of the top eight betting picks on the Derby morning line released last night after the post position draw.

If that isn't the strongest hand a trainer has ever taken into a Derby, it's close.

"There's going to be a suicide watch on Nick if he doesn't win," said Lukas, who has long shot Going Wild in this year's field.

"I can't ask the man upstairs to give me a better shot at [winning a third Derby]," Zito said. "I'd have to have Secretariat himself [to have a better chance]."

Still, Zito isn't about to call a home run before he hits it, like Babe Ruth. The gray-haired trainer, winner of the 1996 Preakness, is all too aware of racing's capricious nature. Just last year, he had the morning-line favorite (The Cliff's Edge) and finished fifth.

"I know this is no gimme. They aren't handing the Derby to us," he said. "There are some other great horses in there."

Pletcher has three, including Bandini, the third betting choice. Bobby Frankel has dangerous High Limit. Afleex Alex, the second choice, won the Arkansas Derby.

"That five against my five would be a pretty good basketball game," Zito said.

He fully expected to have fewer than five; injuries and/or poor performances knock many contenders off the Derby trail. Thoroughbreds are fragile. Far more don't make it to Churchill Downs than do.

But in their most recent races, Bellamy Road won the Wood, High Fly and Noble Causeway finished one-two in the Florida Derby, Andromeda's Hero ran third in the Arkansas Derby and Sun King ran fourth in the Blue Grass Stakes.

All five are legitimate contenders.

"We're all rooting for each other. Everyone wonders about the five of us [owners], but Nick makes it easy," said Weber.

With owners, breeders, jockeys, reporters, well-wishers and gawkers swarming his barn, Zito has put up an exterior fence to give him room to work, and limited his interviews to one group session a day - extreme measures for an outgoing trainer who normally loves to talk.

"It's not me, the fence. We all know it won't be up next year," he said.

But he isn't apologizing. Dealt the hand of a lifetime, he's going for it.