Zito harbors Derby hopes for Casual Trick

"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.