DePinto On 2YO: "He Amazes Me”

Besides possibly baseball, it is hard to find a sport where participants are more superstitious than horse racing. Trainers don't want to talk about their horse's next race, let alone an upcoming three-year-old season. That being said, Cosmo 'Sam' DePinto has probably tried as hard as he can to keep to himself about I Fought Dalaw

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Sometimes the horse just goes on the figurative and does the speaking for himself.

Freshman I Fought Dalaw, a shrewd $22,000 yearling buy, has been seemingly stellar in his four wins that have kicked off his career. Speed and an ability to shrug off challenging starting spots have been on display. The most recent wins for the bay son of Western Ideal came in a $175,000 New Jersey Sires Stakes event at the Meadowlands Racetrack (1:50.4), followed by a gate-to-wire jaunt in 1:52 over the Meadows.

"(I Fought Dalaw) already [has] $110,000 made, and if I can keep him healthy the rest of the year, God knows what his potential is," DePinto said.

The conditioner explained that he didn't make the colt eligible to the Woodrow Wilson Stakes, annually one of the earliest and most prestigious slugfests for juvenile pacing males.

“I didn’t want to over race him," DePinto said. "I want to just give him so many races and that’s it. I don’t want to go week-in and week-out, racing hard. With two-year-olds, they’re only going to give you so many good races. I figured I’d space them out and give him some breaks here and there."

Although the Wilson will definitely miss a colt with the form of I Fought Dalaw, the Meadowlands' loss looks to be Mohawk Racetrack's gain. DePinto mentioned to Harness Racing Communications that he and his young charge will be making the trek north of the 49th parallel for the Campbellville, Ont. oval's Nassagaweya Stakes.

One thing that that was overly apparent from DePinto's HRC interview was that I Fought Dalaw trains like a beast.

“I jog him purposely on the sand track because he goes up in the air on his back legs and with his front legs he goes out in the air like he’s boxing,” DePinto said. “He’ll do that at least five or six times in four or five miles that he jogs. He does it every time, it’s not like you have to just catch him doing it. He scares the hell out of me, I’m afraid he’s going to hurt himself when he lands. He just leaps up on his back legs and starts striking. The only way I could probably stop him would be to jog him with hopples every day, but I don’t want to do that. He’s just a good feeling colt. You can’t tire him out, I’m telling you. He amazes me.”

(With quotes from HRC, a division of the USTA)