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Zito harbors Derby hopes for Casual Trick

Trainer Nick Zito is delighted to have unearthed his latest Derby prospect (Harold Roth/Horsephotos.com) Flash back to a year ago and many Churchill Downs racing fans will easily recall an impressive racing debut by Robert LaPenta's Dialed In, who overcame a poor start and significant traffic woes to win his first outing and immediately established himself as a horse to watch on the road to the 2011 Kentucky Derby. Dialed In lived up to his strong early reviews and entered the starting gate as the betting favorite for Derby 137, but he finished eighth behind Team Valor International's victorious Animal Kingdom. So it should be no surprise that there was a tinge of deja vu in the air during Friday's "Downs After Dark" racing card when the Zito-trained Casual Trick carried LaPenta's racing colors to an emphatic 2 1/2-length win under jockey Jesus Castanon in a one-mile maiden race for juveniles. It was the second career start for Casual Trick, who finished fifth after pressing the pace in his six-furlong debut at Saratoga on August 27. With two wins in the Kentucky Derby to his credit, Zito's mind never wanders far from thoughts of Churchill Downs and the first Saturday in May. So it was easy for the New York-born Hall of Fame trainer to connect the early fortunes of Dialed In and Casual Trick after the latter's stylish win.

"He was doing really well and we were looking for a shorter race, but the mile race came up and we decided to go in there," Zito said. "He ran a really good race and the fact that he won at a mile kind of puts us ahead of where we might have been with him."

Casual Trick has a pedigree that suggests the Kentucky Derby could be right down the bay ridgling's alley.  He's by 2006 Preakness winner Bernardini out of Casual Look, a Red Ransom mare who took the 2003 renewal of Britain's Group 1 Epsom Oaks for breeder William S. Farish. Casual Look's victory for the master of Kentucky's Lane's End Farm in the 1 1/2-mile race for three-year-old fillies came during Farish's service in London as U.S. Ambassador.

"Bernardini is one of the hottest sires out there, and being out of one of Mr. Farish's mares, you know there's quality there," Zito said. "We like to bring our horses to Churchill Downs in the fall and it's worked well for us. Dialed In is a good example of why we like to come here."

Dialed In's November 12 debut last year was the only race of his two-year-old season. He launched his three-year-old campaign with a stretch-running victory in the January 11 Grade 3 Holy Bull at Gulfstream Park, and later won the Grade 1 Florida Derby over that track. The son of Mineshaft went to the sidelines with an injury after a fourth-place finish to behind Shackleford and Animal Kingdom in the Preakness.

Zito said Casual Trick would probably have a racing timetable similar to his campaign with Dialed In, with a first outing against winners likely sometime in January at Gulfstream.

Another Kentucky Derby hope for Zito could emerge in Saturday's Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club, the co-feature on the Stars of Tomorrow II program devoted exclusively to two-year-olds. He plans to saddle Tracy Farmer's homebred Saint Honore in the 1 1/16-mile Kentucky Jockey Club.

A son of Farmer's Sun King, who finished 15th to Giacomo as one of five Zito-trained runners in the 2005 Kentucky Derby, Saint Honore rallied to score a narrow maiden victory on October 10 at Belmont Park. Saint Honore's win came at the Kentucky Jockey Club distance in the third start of his young career.

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