Owners, trainer enjoying magnitude of Derby win

track where he stays and celebrated with family and friends in a conference room there. A morning after winning his second Derby, he said the experience had lost none of its luster from seven years ago, when he won with Super Saver.

“It feels awesome,” he said. “I think it’s still sinking in. It’s a great big feeling that you get to share with a lot of people. I’m just really happy for the connections, really happy for the horse. The first one is special, but this one is just as good or even better.”

Owners Anthony Bonomo and Vincent Viola arrived at the barn shortly after Pletcher. Neither slept Saturday night. They went back to their hotel downtown where a party was waiting, Viola provided the food.

“We ordered 350 White Castle hamburgers,” Viola said. “And about 30 chicken sandwiches for the health conscious.”

White Castles, champagne, bourbon, and a lot of disbelief.

“I haven’t touched the ground yet,” Bonomo said. “The whole enormity of the day and the buildup to it — I didn’t’ sleep all week because I was nervous, and I didn’t sleep last night because I was so happy. ”

Viola, too, said the whole experience had an effect on him that was more pronounced than even he was prepared for.

“You all get to see and experience this from your side of the dynamic,” he told a handful of reporters gathered around him. “I wish all of you could experience, for a moment, from my perspective, because it’s such a glorious feeling. I was thinking about this last night, this is really the quintessential American spectacle. There’s nothing that intermediates between the event, the athlete and the outcome. It’s raw, and it’s majestic. And the athletes are giving their all. All of the values that make our nation so unique, and exceptional, if I can say that, or prompt that, are in this sport.”

If Bonomo got to the track around 8, he said he finished answering all of the text messages he got about a half hour before.

“I had 413 texts, and then you answer them and you pray they don’t answer back,” he said. “So I spent the whole night plugging in my phone and trying to answer everyone who was kind enough to congratulate us and wish us well.”

Now, they are on to Baltimore, and Pimlico Race Course, for the Preakness, which is two weeks from Derby Saturday. Pletcher has made something of a habit of sending his colts who lose in the Derby on to Belmont instead of to Maryland. He’ll do the same with Patch and Tapwrit, both of whom lost in the Derby Saturday, though he said he’d hold off on making plans with those two until the Preakness is over.

The trainers of three Derby starters —Classic Empire, Lookin At Lee, and Gunnevera — said they were considering having their horses compete in the Preakness.

Pletcher said he’d ship Always Dreaming to Pimlico Tuesday morning, given that there are fewer horses in training there and perhaps a calmer atmosphere.

“I’m sure Todd’s got a plan, and I’ll just follow that plan,” Bonomo said.

Both owners said they’ll spend quite a bit of time in Baltimore in the coming weeks. And both are looking forward to going back to their home in Brooklyn, where they first met through baseball and hanging out on stoops talking.

“Brooklyn’s a magical place,” Bonomo said. “If you have a stoop, you’re good. That’s all we did. You sit there and you talk about, in our day, it was the baseball players and football players. Things like that. It’s a place where everybody’s the same. Everybody’s dad is the same type of laborer or bluecollar guy. It’s the type of place where if you had a dollar and another guy had 60 cents and some had no money and there’s eight of you, you buy the sandwich and you cut it up in eight pieces. You know. We all just stayed together, and that’s what’s magical. Your friends are your friends for life.”

As for Always Dreaming, he’ll just gallop at Pimlico. Pletcher said he expects he’ll have no major work, and just hope to keep the colt in his groove. For all the talk of his wild-child nature in workouts, Always Dreaming has proved exceptionally versatile, wherever he has been.

“It’s great when you have a horse that has this sort of tactical speed and the ability to carry it that far,” Pletcher said. “And in the slop too. But he’s run well at Belmont, he’s run well at Saratoga, he’s run well at Tampa, he’s run well twice at Gulfstream on two very different tracks, the allowance win was on a cuppy, dry, demanding surface and the Florida Derby was on a really fast surface, and then here on a sloppy surface. So it’s great when you don’t have to worry about all the variables that you can’t control.”

In his stall, Always Dreaming looked alert and fresh. He’s lightly raced as a 3-year-old and hasn’t lost in four races under Pletcher. He didn’t mind the crowds peeking in, snapping pictures. He was playful with grooms or owners who stopped by. “He’s outstanding,” Pletcher said. “We just need to try to keep him as good as he is right now.”

The Block News Alliance consists of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, and television station WDRB in Louisville, Ky.