David Cassidy on the Web
Zito awed by Hall of Fame honor
August 9, 2005
By SHERRY ROSS
New York Daily News
www.mercurynews.com
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Hours after his induction into the Racing Hall of Fame on Monday, trainer Nick Zito was back at work, but hadn't shed the excitement of the morning.
"I'm still in awe," Zito said. "Seeing all the people that are in the Hall of Fame takes my breath away."
Zito, 57, was the lone flat racing inductee into the Hall of Fame this year. He was joined by three other representatives selected by a steeplechase committee: jockey Thomas Walsh, trainer Sidney Watters Jr., and five-time Eclipse award-winning horse Lonesome Glory.
Zito was the first person (or horse) to be inducted under the new criteria that require a candidate to be named on at least 75 percent of the ballots in order to be elected.
John Hettinger, one of Zito's earliest clients, presented Zito his Hall of Fame plaque and called the Brooklyn-born conditioner "an aggressive workaholic."
Zito runs a public stable, which has meant catering to and coping with the demands of owners as diverse as Rick Pitino, a star in his own right who is relatively new to the game, and Arthur Hancock, whose family is one of the pillars of the bluegrass. Tracy and Carol Farmer made Zito their No. 1 draft pick when they wanted to get involved in the racing game in 1998. Zito rewarded them with a win in the prestigious Whitney Handicap on Saturday.
"We had a very, very small percentage of a horse named Acceptable," Carol Farmer recalled. "We went to the barn just to look at him and Nick treated us like we were very special. When we were looking for a trainer, we remembered that."
Zito's media accessibility, his relationship with the fans, his involvement (along with his wife Kim) in the anti-slaughter and horse rescue movement - qualities that won't fit on his plaque - made this one of the most popular inductions in the Hall of Fame's 50-year history.
David Cassidy, who became involved with racing while still in his teen idol days from "The Partridge Family," gave a keynote speech that was both passionate and humorous. Cassidy said he bought his first yearling racehorse in 1974, in the very pavilion where Monday's ceremony was conducted.
"You can imagine, being as fortunate as I was to be phenomenally wealthy, to have invested tens of millions of dollars (in racing), how proud I am to stand up here 30 years later and say I'm nearly a millionaire today," Cassidy said.
Ed Bowen, the chairman of the Hall of Fame committee, noted in his introduction of Cassidy that the pop star's official fan club was once larger than Elvis Presley's or the Beatles'.
"Whether it's larger than Nick Zito's, we haven't found out yet," Bowen joked.
Judging by the standing room only crowd at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion on Monday, it would be a tight race.
