LaPenta has high hopes

Tiz the Law is the heavy favorite for the Belmont Stakes, but we all know COVID-19 tiz the real law. Coronavirus has ended seasons and forced rescheduling of the biggest sports events around the world.

One by one — UFC, NASCAR, European soccer leagues, the PGA Tour — sports have reemerged to join horse racing in competition without fans in attendance. Suddenly, out of the gate at 5:42 p.m. Saturday, will be the running of the 152nd Belmont on NBC.

Out of order in the Triple Crown for the first time in nearly a century, a shorter distance than its celebrated/ feared 1 1⁄2 miles, the first time in history it goes off as the opening jewel, “The Test of the Champion” seems more like a pop quiz in 2020.

“I certainly hope it’s a one-time thing,” said Wesport’s Bob LaPenta, coowner of Farmington Road, who will go off at 15-1 in the 10-horse field. “The Derby, the Triple Crown, for 150something years, that’s been it. There has been a lot of controversy about changing the Belmont, allowing what horses to run, whether they should have participated in the first two legs.

“I think this year, with races in September and

October, it’s certainly not the same. The Derby, like with every owner, is on my bucket list. I’ve got the Belmont and Travers. Certainly, I’d be over the moon this year, but I wouldn’t want to have the asterisk next to the win.”

With the lords of thoroughbred racing not wanting to stress the 3-year-olds, the Belmont at 1 1⁄8 miles is the shortest of the 2020 Triple Crown races and the shortest since the Preakness in 1924. The 1 1⁄4-mile Kentucky Derby, annually the first Saturday in May, will be run on Sept. 5 and the 1 3/16-mile Preakness, annually two weeks after the Derby, will be Oct. 3. Holding the Belmont any later would bump into the Breeders’ Cup on Nov. 6-7.

The scheduling does give racing fans the much-debated chance to see what the Triple Crown would look like with better rested horses. It also gives the usually overlooked Preakness a great day in the sun if a Triple Crown is at stake. All in all, racing is much better than no racing.

“As an owner and just everybody in the country, we’ve taken a lot of hits,” said LePenta, who grew up in Yonkers, graduated from Iona and is chairman and CEO of Revolution Lightning Technologies in Stamford. “The racing has been severely limited. The bills don’t reflect that. We have been trying to take advantage as anybody does, buying stocks when the market’s down, although the market has been in its own world. We’ve been buying some horses and trying to get a little more favorable pricing. But it has been a painful experience.

“I do think for racing it has been a reawakening. It was the only sport for a time. Even with only Oaklawn, Gulfstream and Churchill open for a while, I think it has brought an incredible number of people into the sport. If you look at the handles on weekends, $40 million to $60 million, I think it will be a reemergence of racing. Certainly, an end to the decline that it has been experiencing the last 15 or 20 years.”

Farmington Road broke his maiden in January at Tampa Bay Downs and has two seconds in six starts. The truth is that the son of Quality Road is better suited for the traditional 1 1⁄2 miles. He charged back to finish fourth in the splitfield Arkansas Derby and finished second in the Oaklawn

Stakes. As his trainer, Todd Pletcher, said, an honest pace early in the Belmont certainly would help his closing kick.

“We think he has a lot of ability,” said LaPenta, 74. “He hasn’t peaked yet. A horse always has to be in top form that day. We think he is. I wish the race was at its traditional distance and there was a little more speed, but you never know what’s going to happen. I think he belongs in the race.

“It has been a learning experience with him. He has been in stakes ever since he broke his maiden. I think the Arkansas Derby was a little bit of an aberration. He has a great sustained three-eighths run, but it’s all about timing and all about the speed of the race. Hopefully, those things come into sync.”

The romance in this year’s Belmont, along with the odds, is with Tiz the Law and Sackatoga Stable. The everyday guys will be remembered as buying into Funny Cide and renting a school bus before winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 2003. I still recall tracking down Waterbury caterer David Mahan, one of the owners, in his Louisville hotel room after a victory party. He was hoarse and giddy. Sadly, he died of brain cancer at 61 in 2009.

Funny Cide took third in the ’03 Belmont, his Triple Crown bid just short.

“Obviously what Tiz the Law did in the Florida Derby is one of the best 3-yearold performances of the year,” LaPenta said. “Sackatoga Stable is looking for revenge and they may get it. He’s a great horse.”

LaPenta won the Belmont with 38-1 long shot Da’Tara in 2008 to end Big Brown’s Triple Crown bid, and won again with Tapwrit in 2017. He also won the 2007 Breeders’ Cup juvenile with War Pass. Still, winning the Travers Stakes in 2018 with Catholic Boy is his biggest thrill in racing.

“I’ve been going to Saratoga since I was 15 and used to look up in the stands and wonder how those people got up in those box seats,” LaPenta said. “The Travers always has been No. 1 on my bucket list, actually more than the Derby. For myself, my family and friends, we had an incredible day. We won the Forego Stakes with Whitmore and then Catholic Boy. It was a day you could never imagine happening and probably never will happen again.”

Thanks to the diagnosis of Dr. Peter Saikali at Norwalk Hospital, LaPenta had recovered from a near-death experience early in 2018 with Legionnaires’ disease, leaving him to say he’d never complain about bad luck again.

So his biggest disappointments? He doesn’t rate them. He just lists them.

“There’s Ice Box (in 2010), he was going to win and had the worst ride in the history of the Kentucky Derby,” LaPenta said. “He was checked, he was brought inside, he was brought outside and he lost the Derby by 1 1⁄2 lengths. Ten yards past the wire he was two lengths ahead of (winner) Super Saver.

“There’s The Cliff’s Edge, a favorite. He was going to win (in 2004). A monsoon came, five inches of rain an hour before the race. He was a closer. Coming out of the gate, he lost two shoes, one went sideways into his hoof and how he ended up finishing the race fifth was amazing.”

Smarty Jones won that 2004 Derby.

“There’s Dialed In. I asked (jockey Julien) Leparoux what the plan was. He said he was going to gauge the pace. Slowest pace in 43 years and we lost by three, four lengths. I’m not going to go into the Preakness, we should have won, a $5 million bonus we should have won. And there’s War Pass, an incredible horse. After the trip from Florida where the plane experienced turbulence and hit the runway hard, he had to get 32 staples in his face and neck and lost the Wood Memorial by a half-length. He was injured (with a minor leg fracture) and (we) had to retire him.”

LaPenta is a huge Iona guy. His horses wear Iona colors. A member of Iona’s Board of Trustees, he donated $17.5 million toward the new $38 million School of Business named in his honor. He also used to own 10 horses with noted horseman Rick Pitino, Iona’s new basketball coach.

“I’m not going to go into our past partnerships, but I’ll just end it by saying he owed me,” LaPenta said, breaking into a big laugh. “I’m hoping him coming to Iona will be a payback.

“Rick’s incredibly psyched. He has had his tough periods and some of them deserved. I think he has learned a lot. We had some meaningful conversations prior to him accepting the job. This is going to be something he considers his legacy, turning Iona into the Gonzaga of the East. I think he’s going to do it.”