Monmouth Park railbird as a kid returns with the top horse in New Jersey's biggest race (2024)

A bit of wonderment remains in Vito Cucci’s voice as he detailed a quintessential New Jersey story, about his junior high-self skipping school and taking the bus from Nutley to Penn Station in Newark, where he caught a train to Monmouth Park after saving up enough lunch money to bet $2 on each race.

More than a half-century later, Cucci will be back in the Jersey Shore grandstand where he fell in love with the sport, this time making the short drive from his home in Belmar on Saturday as one of the owners of Belmont Stakes winner Dornoch, the likely favorite in the $1 million NYRA Bets Haskell Stakes.

Cucci, a standardbred owner since 1986 and the breeder of 2022 Hambletonian winner Cool Papa Bell, didn’t get into the thoroughbred game until 2018. But his Belmar Racing & Breeding has had immediate success, already having run two horses in Breeders’ Cup races, while owning a piece of others that have run in top European races, including the Arc de Triomphe.

More: Why an unheralded horse carries the hopes of NJ racing in Monmouth Park's $1 million Haskell

It was the victory in the Belmont Stakes on June 8 at Saratoga that pushed the Danny Gargan-trained Dornoch into the national spotlight, part of an elite group of top 3-year-olds battling for a year-end championship.

“It’s unbelievable to run the Belmont Stakes winner at our home track here,” Cucci said.

Haskell: Belmont winner pointing to Monmouth Park race; Preakness winner out

“I’ve been very fortunate. And now with Dornoch winning the Belmont Stakes, it’s just incredible. It’s been an incredible ride.”

Dornoch heads a Haskell field expected to include 2-year-old champion Fierceness, Grade 1 winner Timberlake and highly regarded Mindframe, along with Pegasus Stakes winner Tuscan Sky and Long Branch Stakes winner Sea Streak. The Haskell Day card includes four other graded stakes races, including the Grade 2 $600,000 United Nations on the turf.

Full circle at Jersey Shore

It was September of 2022 when Cucci picked up a call from Gargan, phoning from a yearling sale at Keeneland.

“He called out of the blue and said, ‘you just bought a Good Magic colt.’ And I said, ‘thanks Danny,’ “ Cucci recalled. “I’m not sure he had any of the partners involved at that point. I’m not sure if he had the money for the horse. But he just started calling people and telling them he bought a horse, and you own part of him.”

Purchased for $325,000, Dornoch turned out to be a full brother to 2023 Kentucky Derby winner Mage, while Good Magic won the 2018 Haskell, and was second in the Kentucky Derby behind eventual Triple Crown winner Justify.

One of the partners is former Philadelphia Phillies star Jayson Werth's Two Eight Racing, with Werth expected to attend the Haskell after his enthusiasm and long, flowing hair stole the show at the Belmont Stakes.

Dornoch finished second in the Sapling Stakes at Monmouth Park last August, then won a maiden race in style at Keeneland. After closing the year with a win in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct, the 2024 season opened with a win in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park in March.

In the Kentucky Derby, Dornoch finished tenth after drawing the rail, unable to overcome a rough trip on the inside under jockey Luis Saez, who won the Haskell in 2019 with Maximum Security.

“We got very unlucky. We lost the race when we drew the one post. It was very, very difficult breaking out of there,” Cucci said.

Now the story comes full circle. Cucci met his wife, Claire, who grew up in Newark, in Bradley Beach, where they maintained a home for years while living in Glen Ridge. And when she retired as a Jersey City teacher 15 years ago, they moved to Belmar full time.

Cucci will look to become the second recent Haskell winner with local connections. In 2022, longtime Ocean Township resident and Monmouth Park regular Al Gold won the Jersey Shore fixture with Cyberknife.

Back to Monmouth Park

It would be the latest in a series of successes for Belmar Racing & Breeding, with Haughty running third in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Filly Turf race, and Austere placing fifth in that race last year. The 3-year-old filly Implicated recently won the Grade 2 Nassau Stakes at Woodbine in Canada, while La Parisienne ran second in the Group 1 Prix de Diane at Chantilly in France in 2022.

Not bad for a first generation Italian-American, who began working in the family restaurant. Now he and his partners, fellow Nutley natives Barry and Joe Maurillo, own a trio of wedding venues in Nanina’s in the Park in Belleville, Park Chateau Estate and Gardens in Florham Park and the Park Savoy Estate in East Brunswick.

Beginning Monday at their Chateau Grande Hotel in East Brunswick, the August Belmont Trophy and Hambletonian Trophy will be on display for two weeks as the summer racing season heats up. The 2024 Hambletonian will be run Aug. 3 at the Meadowlands.

What Cucci has not forgotten is where he came from.

His racing colors are maroon and grey, the colors of Nutley High School, where he played football. And his freshman football coach, Joe Affinito, will be with him on Haskell Day.

“The maroon and grey signifies my love of my hometown,” Cucci said. “There are so many important people for me growing up. Let’s just say I was a headstrong kid, and playing football in Nutley, my coaches there had such an important role in my life. It truly took a village to get me through school and they were really instrumental in my life.”

Now it’s Dornoch taking his racing business to the next level, as the anticipation builds for the second half of the season in a wide open 3-year-old division.

“Danny (Gargan) said right from the start this horse was special. And when he raced for the first time at up at Saratoga, Luis Saez told him he was a Kentucky Derby winner,” Cucci said.

While the Kentucky Derby didn’t work out, a victory in the Haskell would be the latest, greatest chapter in a story that began with a junior high school kid stepping off the train at Monmouth Park.

Stephen Edelson is a USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey sports columnist who has been covering athletics in the state and at the Jersey Shore for over 35 years. Contact him at: @SteveEdelsonAPP; sedelson@gannettnj.com.