Breeders Crown favorite exceeds expectations
The transition from $7,000 yearling to $2 million winner could happen by Saturday for three-year-old trotting colt Nuncio. He's the 6-5 favorite from post three in the $500,000 Breeders Crown at The Meadowlands.
In a little more than two years, the strapping bay colt, owned by Stall TZ of Sweden, has gone from nearly overlooked to nearly unbeatable. He's won 16 of his 26 starts this year and been second in the other ten. It's added up to $1,859,145 in career earnings and a shot to be champion of his division and perhaps Horse of the Year.
Nuncio is currently third in the Hambletonian/Breeders Crown Top Ten Poll. The horse immediately ahead of him, Sebastian K, is not racing in the Breeders Crown and a miscue by the filly at the top of the list, JK She'salady, could change voters' minds. He's already won two-thirds of the Trotting Triple Crown, with wins in the Yonkers Trot, Kentucky Futurity and a second in the Hambletonian.
The low purchase price was largely due to Nuncio's sketchy family tree on his mother, Nicole Isabelle's side. You have to go back to the '50s and '60s to find a horse comparable to Nuncio. "It's a family that you don't get a top horse from all of the time, but when you get one, there's dynamite," says his breeder Russell Williams, who sold him for $7,000 at public auction.
Nuncio's trainer, Jimmy Takter, sends out 19 horses in the Friday and Saturday night races, worth $5.8 million for all ages, gaits and genders. "I didn't like his last start (a win by three quarters of a length in the $200,350 Matron Stake at Dover Downs on November 6)," said Takter. "But his last training mile this week was really good. He's the kind of horse you can never rule out."
Nuncio races Saturday with John Campbell driving; it's Campbell's 31st year of Breeders Crown competition. He's the leading driver in Crown history, with $21 million in purses won.
"You can point to all his races as ones where he raced well," said Campbell. "I think his worst race was the last race at Dover. He wasn't himself, but he was still good enough to win. He's got a very good determination about him and that's very difficult to teach. He just came that way. I've just been so impressed with him because I know, every start, I'm going to get a good effort out of him.
"I don't have a vote (for Horse of the Year) but I'll just let the races here determine what's going to happen. Winning takes care of everything, I've always said that. We'll see what happens this weekend and then go from there on Horse of the Year."