After having been given time and not rushed through his two-year season, a green son of Artiscape did quite well at playing catch-up last season at three. Now an older competitor, the process is beginning to really pay off
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Take a gander at the leaderboard entering this Saturday's final preliminary round of Yonkers Raceway's George Morton Levy Memorial Pacing Series.
There's millionaire Real Nice, last season's series champ and this season's only four-for-four combatant. There's the off-this-week Foiled Again, thrice a millionaire and twice a series winner (2009, 2010). There's Atochia, a seven-figure earner in his own right and a winner in each of his three Levy efforts.
There's Art Z --- yes, Art Z?
That's right. Sitting third in series standings is none other than Art Z, a New York-bred, four-year-old gelding who's blended in with a fast crowd.
Art Z drew Post 3 in the third of this Saturday night's four, $50,000 Levy dashes. He enters with a pair of wins (1:52 and 1:52.4), a second and a third in his four series starts, all but assuring himself a seat at the table for the $455,000 final on April 28.
So, how did a 'good' New York Sire Stakes horse enter into the den of the Free-For-Allers?
"The first thing I noticed about him is his gait is a lot smoother than it was as a three-year-old," said driver Brett Miller, who has been making the weekly pilgrimage to Westchester. "I won with him at Batavia last summer (1:52.3). He was much the best in there, but he was a handful.
"Now, I can shut him down for a breather, then start him right back up. He's also finishing his miles much better.”
"He has a big heart. That's the best thing about him," said trainer Jordan Rubin. "At three, he was green and very bumpy-gaited. He had more trouble getting around Yonkers than any other track, and he even won a sire stakes race here."
I think the time off (his three-year-old season ended October 1, with a tiring sixth-place finish in the $175,000 final of the NYSS at Saratoga) did him good. When we brought him back, I made a few changes with his head pole, and I think it's helped. He began training like a gorilla, so we thought he'd be better, but I didn't know he'd be this good.
"He's turned into a professional racehorse."
"The (Levy) series wasn't something we had thought about," Rubin said. "Like I said, he hated racing here, but I had asked Dave Miller, who was driving him over the Meadowlands, and he thought it would be worth a shot."
Of course, after springing a 15-1 upset in the $78,400 final of the Four Leaf Clover across the river, the connections were playing with house money.
"The Levy is a tremendous value for the ($5,000 entry fee) money," Rubin said.
The above statement meets with the approval of Art Z's owner, Richard Lombardo, a transplanted New Yorker now living near Northfield Park in suburban Cleveland. He purchased Art Z from Bob McIntosh for $85,000 last June and has seen him earn some nice purses in his four Levy starts.
"I prefer looking in Ontario for lightly-raced horses which I think have some upside," Lombardo said. "This horse was unraced at two, and I've found the horsemen up there tend to baby their horses early, which I like.
"Did I think he'd turn out to be this good? Nope."
While giddy about Art Z's success, Lombardo is also a realist.
"We've been fortunate to catch the right divisions and avoid the big guns in a few starts," he said. "We came first-up against Foiled Again last week, and he dismissed us (Art Z finishing third), but that's alright.
"Even with the open draw for the final, I know it's going to be extremely difficult to beat those great horses.
"However, he's earned his way in, and I'm very happy."
(Yonkers)