Adam Coglianese
Thomas Coleman’s talented late-running homebred Zivo, as honest as the day as long and looking for his sixth straight victory, rallied from last-to-first to collar the field of Saturday’s Grade 2, $500,000 Suburban Stakes at Belmont Park for his first graded score.
Relatively dismissed by bettors in his graded stakes debut at odds of 13-1, the Chad Brown trainee was last seen winning the Commentator Handicap on the Big Apple Showcase card by a neck with a dramatic last-to-first bid from midway on the far turn under Jose Ortiz.
This time around the 5-year-old son of former New York sire True Direction was partnered with the hot-handed Jose Lezcano, who was having a career day. Earlier on the Stars & Stripes Day card, Lezcano piloted Clearly Now to a course record-setting victory in the Grade 3 Belmont Sprint Championship and Mr. Speaker to a win in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby Invitational.
Zivo, who was stretching out a furlong further than in previous starts for the 1 1/4-mile Suburban, began the race in a characteristically unhurried fashion, taking back and lingering in last through strong early fractions of 23.58 and 46.92.
Adam Coglianese
Passing his first horses along the inside around the far turn, Zivo advanced quickly, making his way between rivals into fourth, leaving only three lengths to make up in upper stretch. Diving back down toward the rail, he continued his relentless rally to the front, cleared the pacesetting Moreno in the final furlong and secured the victory by three lengths. The final time for the 1 1/4 miles over the fast main track was 2:00.43. [VIDEO]
Jose Lezcano said, “Chad told me the horse was doing very good. He told me to let him break and sit and make one run. He gave me what I needed to win the race. I had plenty of horse. [Moreno] kept going, but my horse came running.”
Brown elaborated, with praise for his jockey. “Jose rode [Zivo] perfectly,” said Brown. “We’ve always put him in races we think fit him. This horse has really come around well and it was time to step out of New York-bred company and try him in an open company race with a big purse.”
Brown continued, “Tom Coleman, the owner, who bred the horse, we work as a team. He said, ‘Let’s just enter and look.’ All the way until this morning, he wasn’t really committed to coming in from the Hamptons. He said, ‘You want me to come?’ I said, ‘Let’s try it. The horse is training well enough and he loves Belmont, let’s try it.’ Once I saw the strong pace, I knew he’d come running. That last eighth was definitely as strong as I’ve seen from him. But then again, he’s a horse that’s only gotten better.”
Adam Coglianese
Never out of the exacta in 15 career starts and a winner of four of six Belmont starts, Zivo has now won four stakes races: the Grade 2 Suburban and Commentator at Belmont as well as the Whodam and King’s Point this winter at Aqueduct – all featuring last-to-first drama. His record now stands at 9-2-4 and his bankroll stands at over three-quarters of a million dollars ($782,300)
Foaled at Keane Stud in Amenia, Zivo is out of American Skipper, a three-time winner by Quiet American bred in Kentucky by Brereton C. Jones and campaigned by Stronach Stables ($202,211). American Skipper has produced three winners from three foals to start. Her only other registered New York-bred foal is a winning 4-year-old Officer filly named Clean Eleven. Zivo’s sire True Direction stood in New York from 2007 to 2008 at Keane Stud.
