NYRA/Lauren King
Thomas Coleman’s multiple stakes-winning homebred Zivo (True Direction), could not have concluded the stakes portion of the Big Apple Showcase card on a more thrilling note, launching an improbable last-to-first bid from midway on the turn to capture the $200,000 Commentator Handicap by a neck for his fifth consecutive victory.
Trained by Chad Brown, winner of the inaugural running of the Commentator Stakes last year with Readtheprospectus (returning also in this year’s field), Zivo carried the top impost of 123 pounds in the deep, competitive 13-horse field.
Bet down to 6-5 favoritism, Zivo must have given his backers pause when he settled in last place more than 10 lengths behind pacesetter Weekend Hideaway, who was meanwhile pressed by Big Business just to his inside. Zivo continued to travel in last for the length of the stretch, before passing his first horse midway on the far turn.
Moving off the rail as the field turned for home, Zivo negotiated some traffic and worked his way into the clear five-wide, and, with a furlong to go, still had five horses to pass and four furlongs to make up.
As Big Business look over from Weekend Hideaway on the front end, Zivo accelerated his charge, passing his last three rivals in the final sixteenth and apparently just getting up at the wire. As race announcer Tom Durkin called it, “Photo finish! That was miraculous if he got there! Did Zivo get there to nip Big Business? It was very very close!”
The photo revealed that Zivo did in fact “get there” by a short neck over Big Business. Weekend Hideaway was third, followed by Prohibition, Crafty Dreamer, Awesome Vision, Readtheprospectus, Pinball, Smooth Bert, Moneyinyour Pocket, This Hard Land, Bernando, and Comandante. After speedy fractions of 22.69, 45.29 and 1:09.51, the final time for the mile was 1:34.11. [VIDEO]
Jockey Jose Ortiz, having just won his fourth race of the day and third stakes race on the Big Apple Showcase card, said, “They didn’t really give me instructions, but I know the horse very well. I was worried because the track is playing fast. There was a little traffic but I asked him to go little by little. I saw [Big Business] was ahead by three lengths when I got clear, so I thought maybe I wouldn’t get there, but I kept riding and he kept flying.”
Cherie DeVaux, Chad Brown’s assistant said, “That was very exciting. It’s been really rewarding to have [Zivo] in the barn. He’s such a professional, gutting it out and getting there right when he needs to. I’m sure everyone heard me cheering for him. He waits until the very last second, but he knows what he’s doing.”
Zivo adds his victory in the Commentator to back-to-back last-to-first stakes victories at Aqueduct in the Whodam stakes on January 19 and King’s Point on February 22. Never off the board in 14 career starts, he has run up his record to 8-2-4 with earnings of just over a half million dollars ($507,300). Zivo’s additional stakes placings include runner-up finishes in both the Albany Stakes at Saratoga in August 2012 in his stakes debut, and the Move It Now Stakes on the Aqueduct main track last November.
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.
