Nick Zito

Horse racing has a language of its own. It's part of the sport's charm.To talk like a true race tracker, it's not enough just to know the terminology. You have to know how to speak ungrammatically, especially when it comes to tense.Everything that has ever occurred at a race track is expressed in the present tense, even if it happened a half century ago.For instance, the words ran and won -- perfectly good English verbs -- don't exist at the track. They're past tense.To illustrate, take the colt Pensive, who won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness a half century ago. Horsemen don't say he won those Triple Crown races in 1994.

Someone mentioned to Nick Zito that horses he trained were now 1-for-6 in the Preakness."Don't say that like it's bad," Zito said. "One-for-6 isn't bad, you know."It's a whole lot better than 0-for-5, which was Zito's record in the Preakness before Louis Quatorze ran away from the field yesterday at Pimlico.The victory was Zito's first in a Triple Crown race other than the Kentucky Derby, which he has won twice with Strike the Gold in 1991 and Go For Gin in 1994.Those victories elevated Zito, 48, into the upper echelon of thoroughbred trainers.

The thought of an off track at today's $700,000 Pimlico Special isn't exactly sending trainers scurrying to scratch their horses.One man in particular was smiling as the rain and unseasonably cold weather made for a mucky racetrack yesterday, possibly clouding the chances of overwhelming favorite Best Pal. That man was Hall of Famer Ron McAnally, trainer of Ibero, the Argentina-bred horse who is 2-for-2 over a sloppy track."

Nick Zito kept waiting for the moment to come. He kept watching his horse, Dialed In, at the back of the pack, and figured he was going to make a charge. Dialed In is a closer, after all, and he won the Florida Derby in impressive fashion with a strong finish, so why should the Kentucky Derby be any different? Unfortunately for Zito, the charge never came. Of all the horses in the field, Dialed In seemed like the safest bet to at least hit the board, but the burst he showed in previous races just wasn't there, and the Derby favorite finished a disappointing eighth.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The Italian insurance company that owns Cigar has finally decided to send the Maryland-bred champion to the Kentucky Horse Park.Madeleine Paulson, whose husband, Allen, campaigned Cigar, said yesterday that she had received a letter from the company stating its intention to move Cigar to the public park in Lexington. Paulson was on the backstretch at Churchill Downs visiting her horse K One King, who will run Saturday in the Kentucky Derby.No one at the horse park or with the insurance company, Assicurazioni Generali, could be reached yesterday to comment.

Nick Zito lost a horse but gained a cause in March 2010. Young children fighting bone cancer became beneficiaries in the end. Two months ago, the Hall of Fame trainer failed in his attempt to purchase Norman Asbjornson — a Preakness entry and son of Real Quiet — but was inspired to learn about the courageous battle against cancer by the son of the colt's trainer, Chris Grove . Noah Grove , now 12, was diagnosed with bone cancer...

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Nick Zito has a headache. And it's not your usual headache, Zito said; it's a migraine. Although Zito, a trainer fixated on the Kentucky Derby, has five horses on the Derby trail, including two in the $1 million Florida Derby tomorrow at Gulfstream Park, he has a head full of worries. He's worried about "strangles," the contagious bacterial disease that is disrupting training and equine travel up and down the East Coast. He's worried about the health of High Fly, his Florida Derby favorite, who spiked a fever over the weekend.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- When Strike the Gold drew the far outside post position yesterday for tomorrow's 123rd Belmont Stakes, Nick Zito saw it as a test for a champion.Strike the Gold drew No. 11 in the 1 1/2 -mile "Test of Champions," prompting Zito, the colt's trainer, to say, "Now maybe we'll see what a special horse he is."The draw was a letdown for Zito -- but then the whole spring has been an emotional roller coaster for him and others involved in the Triple Crown. Strike the Gold's Kentucky Derby victory was followed by a sixth-place finish in the Preakness.

A man in the crowd around Nick Zito outside the Preakness barn one morning this week asked the trainer of long shot Star Standard if he was here "for business or pleasure."Zito paused for just a moment before replying tartly: "I should go ballistic. I don't approach anything for pleasure. I wish everyone would take me seriously when I do my work."Is this the land of pleasure? I guess I just haven't found that to be the case. Everyone at Pimlico treats me real nice. But pleasure, what kind of pleasure?

Super Saver's mud-splashed win in the Kentucky Derby scared no one. Two more Derby horses confirmed for the Preakness on Monday, and if Mission Impazible does the same today as expected, no fewer than five also-rans from Louisville will renew the chase with Super Saver in Baltimore. "It looks like people aren't believing what Calvin [Borel] said," trainer Nick Zito said about Borel's Triple Crown prediction for Super Saver. "But I understand why he said it. The Derby is a deceiving race.