Venti Valentine Part of Successful Partnership

For Dan Zanatta, a racing partnership has led to a much more fulfilling and loving partnership.

When Zanatta formed NY Final Furlong Racing Stable with his buddy, Vince Roth, in 2012 it took him down a path that would change his life.

It introduced him to the tumultuous world of racehorse ownership and management. It's allowed him to be a part of stakes wins and disappointing efforts. Horses that hit the jackpot and some awash in red ink. He's bred horses, including a stakes winner, and pinhooked them.

Come May 6, he will also experience the exhilaration of having a starter in the $1.25 million Longines Kentucky Oaks (G1) when the New York-bred Venti Valentine  breaks from the starting gate in the historic stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Churchill Downs.

Oh, and through NY Final Furlong, he also met his partner for the rest of his life, his fiancé and wife-to-be, Tracy, who, quite fittingly, is the daughter of a racing partner.

Who could ask for anything more?

"It's been a fairy tale from start to finish," he said. "It's been a great story, a magical story from humble beginnings."

Adding a Kentucky Oaks victory to all of the above would be the icing on the wedding cake, but that will not be easy in a field of 14 that features stars such as Nest , Echo Zulu , Secret Oath , and Kathleen O. 

Yet she's a highly interesting 20-1 proposition in the race based on a neck loss at 2 to morning-line favorite Nest in the Demoiselle Stakes (G2) at the Oaks distance of 1 1/8 miles and a strong, winning effort in the Busher Invitational Stakes for trainer Jorge Abreu two starts back that netted a speed figure which puts the co-homebred daughter of Firing Line   in the mix with the top contenders.

"The Oaks sets up perfectly for her with a lot of speed. She's run her best races with a target. If there's enough speed she can give herself a target and get back to her best races," said Zanatta, whose partnership owns Venti Valentine along with the Parkland Thoroughbreds of Steve Weston, who just so happens to be his future father-in-law. "I think she's very live. She's training lights out at Churchill Downs. (Jockey Tyler Gaffalione) has been raving about her. She's grown up. She's put on weight and she's dappled head to toe. Hopefully the stars are aligning for us."

The stars have certainly aligned properly for Zanatta and Roth since they started NY Final Furlong as co-managing partners some 10 years ago.

Their idea was to take advantage of the lucrative New York State breeding program through buying and maintaining about 20 New York-bred fillies and mares for racing and breeding, syndicating them to clients, and sending them to Abreu and Christophe Clement for their racing careers.

"The New York-bred program gives massive incentives to race and breed in New York," Roth said. "When we win a race, we enjoy the win. Almost everyone I talk to after the race will say, 'Oh wait, we get a check for this, too.' People are so happy to get such an experience and also a monetary award on top of it."

Their first big success story was Espresso Shot, a 2016 daughter of Mission Impazible   out of the Medaglia d'Oro   mare Glory Gold. A stakes winner owned in a partnership with Maspeth Stables and Parkland, she helped NY Final Furlong build its roster of roughly 50 syndicate members through winning five of her 24 starts for Abreu and earning $516,625 before she was sold to Spendthrift Farm for $300,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Mixed Sale. She also set everything in place for Venti Valentine and his future wife to enter Zanatta's life.

"We owe a lot to Espresso Shot," said Zanatta, a middle market manager for TD Bank. "The fact that Venti Valentine is the first homebred we've raced makes it triply exciting. She's the best horse we've ever owned and it's all because of Espresso Shot who was our previous banner bearer for a long time."

In November of 2018, after Espresso Shot had finished 13th in the JPMorgan Chase Jessamine Stakes (G2T) in an ugly experiment on turf, Zanatta received a call from his bloodstock agent, Mike Recio, telling him about a mare he wanted to buy for Zanatta's group.

"Mike called me at 10:30 at night and told me he was going to buy me a broodmare the next day," said Zanatta, who lives in Garden City, N.Y. "I said, 'Please don't.' He said he was and that it would be cheap. He didn't even say who it was. I kept saying no and then finally he said it was Glory Gold, the dam of Espresso Shot. I said, 'I'm listening.' He had my interest."

Recio, who passed away at the age of 46 last September, expected to get Glory Gold, who was carrying a Firing Line foal, for about $5,000-$6,000. She wound up costing $13,000 but was worth every penny of it and then some.

"We knew Espresso Shot was much better than her turf race and that the value of Glory Gold and her foal would go up when we put her back on dirt and she started winning," Zanatta said.

Before the year was over, Espresso Shot won the East View Stakes for state-breds, convincing Zanatta and Roth they had made an astute purchase thanks to Recio. 

Venti Valentine has proved to be the sixth of seven foals from the highly productive Glory Gold, and her dam's second stakes winner and fourth winner overall. The broodmare also produced a yearling filly out of Omaha Beach   who was sold for $220,000 to Sewanne Investments from the Ballysax Bloodstock consignment at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Mixed Sale.

Once Glory Gold delivered Venti Valentine for breeders NY Final Furlong and Maspeth, the good news continued when Zanatta received glowing reports about the weanling filly from Brandon Rice, who operates RiceHorse Stables with his wife, Ali de Meric.

"It was scary, but I kept hearing that Venti Valentine was better than Espresso Shot," Zanatta said.

Normally, NY Final Furlong would sell the foals from their broodmares but those reports and the pandemic prompted Zanatta and Roth to keep and race the filly.

"We didn't think we would get what she was worth so we decided to keep her," Zanatta said.

Weston then bought out Maspeth's share of the filly and Venti Valentine lived up to her advance billing by winning her Sept. 26 debut by a nose in a state-bred six-furlong maiden race at Belmont Park. She then stretched out to a mile to take the restricted Maid of the Mist Stakes by 3 3/4 lengths on a sloppy track.

The neck loss to Nest in the Demoiselle at Aqueduct Racetrack followed before the Abreu-trained filly romped by seven lengths in the open Busher. In her final prep for the Kentucky Oaks, she uncharacteristically set the pace in the Gazelle Stakes (G3) and could not fend off a stretch bid by Nostalgic while settling for second, 1 1/4 lengths behind.

"She was never taken to the front before," Weston said. "That happens. She was caught by a horse who came inside of her but then on the runout she then passed the other horse. That doesn't change what happened but maybe she lost interest when she was clear and didn't finish. Now she has a chance to redeem herself against some amazing fillies."

Initially, following the Gazelle, there were thoughts about skipping the Kentucky Oaks and pointing for the mile Acorn Stakes (G1) at Belmont Park. But the way Venti Valentine rebounded from her loss put the Kentucky Derby Eve Run for the Lilies back on her agenda.

"We've had 10 wins from our last 35 starts, averaging about $17,000 each start, which compares favorably with anyone. But I only want to enter a race I feel confident we can win and I feel confident here about Venti Valentine. Jorge says we're running to be 1-2-3. If I didn't think she'd hit the board we would not be running," said Zanatta, who noted that about a dozen NY Final Furlong partners own a share of the homebred filly. "Vince and I always said we would not go to the (Kentucky) Oaks or the (Kentucky) Derby (G1) until we had a horse running in the Oaks—and our bags are packed."

For the 76-year-old Weston, Venti Valentine, a $416,250 earner, will be his first Kentucky Oaks starter, though he has owned shares of some fleet graded stakes winners such as Maracuja  and Horologist .

"It's exciting just to be in this race. I'm excited for everyone, especially Jorge. He has done such a great job with Venti Valentine and all of our horses," said Weston, who owned a pharmaceutical company along with e Five Racing Thoroughbreds' Bob Edwards, a neighbor on Fifth Avenue, overlooking the Oklahoma training track, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. "This is the pinnacle of racing, owning a filly like this. Hopefully she will run well because she's facing the best 3-year-old dirt fillies in the world."

As for the romantic side of the story, Zanatta was at a 2019 party at Sugar Plum Farm in Saratoga when he met Tracy, Weston's daughter with his late first wife. 

"I had known Steve for about three years before that and didn't even know he had a daughter until then," Zanatta said.

Love bloomed and on Labor Day weekend they will be married at The Mansion of Saratoga on a day when Dan Zanatta will take a successful partnership to the next level.