Longtime pals living their dream as Derby winner heads to Preakness
Brooklyn Boys both grew up with a love for racing and have turned that love into a championship horse
THE CELEBRATION, which actually began 48 hours before the May 6 Kentucky Derby, when legendary race announcer Tom Durkin stood up on a table and called Always Dreaming the winner at O'Shea's Restaurant in Louisville, continues. The night of the Derby, all the partners ended up at the Aloft Hotel in the 'Ville where, believe it or not, they "feasted" on 350 White Castle burgers. Last Saturday, the only Saturday between the Derby and Preakness, Terry and Debbie Finley, along with family and friends, watched Derby videos and relived the moment at Terry's sister-in-law's home in Yardley, just the other side of Route 1 from the Oxford Valley Mall and Sesame Place.
Vinnie Viola and Anthony Bonomo, the kids from Brooklyn who grew up 21/2 blocks from each other in the Williamsburg section, are the main owners of the Derby winner, but they insisted on letting some of their friends in for a piece of the action. One of those friends was Finley, who grew up in Bucks County, played defensive back at Truman High and graduated from West Point in 1986, nine years after Viola. Finley's West Point Thoroughbred partnerships have some significant successes, including when their Commanding Curve was second to California Chrome in the 2014 Derby. Now, West Point is part owner of a Derby winner and, if you want to hear Durkin's call, check it out on Finley's Facebook page.
"Tonight, you can go to bed and you don't have to dream," Finley said memorably, 90 minutes after the Derby.
Always Dreaming is unbeaten in four 2017 races for the partnership after losing his two races last year for Bonomo. The wins have been by a combined 23 lengths. The colt has won $2.28 million. He was favored in the Derby and will be a huge favorite in the Preakness.
The colt is so talented, he probably did not need any divine intervention, but the owners were taking no chances on Sunday, April 30. After watching Viola's first-time starter, Army Mule, win the fifth race by 81/2 lengths at Belmont Park that afternoon, a group gathered at Bamonte's, a favorite restaurant in the old neighborhood, 16 miles up the Cross Island Parkway, west on the Long Island Expressway and a touch on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.
John Velazquez, who rode Army Mule and would be riding Always Dreaming in the Derby, was invited and was presented with a scapular blessed by Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello, whose cooking show is called, naturally, Breaking Bread.
"Johnny V" wore the scapular under his silks in the Derby. There was trouble everywhere in the Derby except where Always Dreaming was running.
Viola, 61, and Bonomo, 59, are not only doing this together, they are sharing it with anybody and everybody.
"There's an old saying from the old Italian neighborhood, 'If you have a loaf of bread under each arm, don't grab for the third loaf with your teeth, you might crack your teeth and you can't eat any of it,' " Viola said.
When the "Brooklyn Boys" made the deal last summer to share some of the horses each owned, Viola said there was no written contract, just "a different kind of trust."
"I know Anthony since I was maybe 9 or 10," Viola said "He was maybe 7 or 8. And he's always been a larger-than-life champion guy. Didn't matter if it was stick ball or punch ball, he was always going to fight until he won."
Bonomo pitched at St. John's, where he was teammates with Frank Viola and John Franco. Later, he became a huge supporter of a young basketball coach at Hofstra.
"He's the greatest guy, salt of the earth," Villanova coach Jay Wright texted two days after the Derby. "Like a South Philly guy. All family and friends. Love this guy."
If Always Dreaming wins the Preakness, Wright said he will try to make the Belmont Stakes. Won't everybody?
"I just love seeing him in that West Point uniform," Bonomo said of Viola. "He actually represented everything I wasn't. Orderly, disciplined."
Viola is a billionaire high-frequency trader whose Manhattan house just off Central Park at 12 E. 69th St. was listed at $114 million in 2014. Bonomo made a boatload of cash in medical-malpractice insurance.
Although they usually met up at least once a year back in the neighborhood, it was a mutual love of the racetrack that got them back together more regularly.
"I tell the story my dad taught me about betting, because he let me stand in front of the tote board," Viola said. "And I had to tell him what numbers moved while he was gone. It wasn't until I was much older I realized he was going to get a shot of Scotch in the bar, but that's a whole other story."
John Viola, a truck driver, had his son watch and analyze odds movements on the tote board.
"The numbers on the boards in the markets, they move so slow for me," Viola said. "As a kid, my dad would be, 'What happened to the 3 horse?' 'Well, Dad, he started out 5-2 and then . . . ' "
Bonomo's dad was a bricklayer who also took his son to the track.
"We didn't go as much as we would like because he worked so much in the day," Bonomo said.''
He really got into the track when he met his wife Mary Ellen. Her dad loved it.
"I used to have some great times with my father-in-law," Bonomo said. "And the inspiration came from him loving it and then my wife loving it."
Bonomo said they used to sneak into the track back in the day because they had so little money. They won't be sneaking into Pimlico.
Preakness owners are limited to eight paddock passes. When Finley's partnership ran horses in the Preakness, there was a problem because of all the partners and they always wanted more. There is one exception to that limit: Own the Derby winner. How many do owners of the Derby winner get?
"As many as you want," Finley was told.
@DickJerardi