Aqueduct: I Want Revenge looks to end skid in Evening Attire Stakes

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – It has been almost three years since I Want Revenge shipped cross-country to win the Gotham and Wood Memorial at Aqueduct and stamp himself the favorite for the 2009 Kentucky Derby.

It has been equally as long since I Want Revenge has won a race.

Now 6, I Want Revenge embarks on another comeback at the scene of one of his most impressive victories when he runs in Saturday’s $75,000 Evening Attire Stakes over Aqueduct’s inner track.

I Want Revenge, owned in a partnership headed by IEAH Stable and trained by Richard Dutrow Jr., has not run since finishing second in the Three Coins Up Stakes at Belmont ion May 19. He breezed back twice out of that race, before being sidelined with hind-end issues.

He returned to training in September and has breezed nine times – with perhaps a blowout later this week to come – since Nov. 21.

“We’ve always wanted to go on with him, we never wanted to stop on him as long as he was showing us he still wanted to go on,” said Mike Iavarone, who heads the IEAH Stable. “He had a hind-end issue, Rick gave him a bunch of time. Since he’s come back, he’s been unbelievable, I mean really unbelievable.”

I Want Revenge was really unbelievable in spring 2009, when he won the Gotham by 8 1/2 lengths over the inner track and overcame a bad break to win the Wood Memorial by 1 1/2 lengths.

He was the morning-line favorite for the Kentucky Derby, but was scratched the morning of the race with an ankle injury. That injury kept him out of the races for more than a year.

During that time, Iavarone and David Lanzman, the original owner who had sold part interest in the colt to IEAH, got into a legal dispute that ended with Iavarone eventually buying out Lanzman.

I Want Revenge raced five times since July 3, 2010, without winning. In 2010, I Want Revenge was third in the Suburban and Iselin. In 2011, he was fourth in the Donn and 10th in the Godolphin Mile in Dubai before the Three Coins Up.

“It’s been frustrating, that’s the best way to say it,” Iavarone said. “We’ve had him right, little things have gone wrong that set us back. I think that finally we got our issues behind us, and we can get him in a regular routine of racing so he has a chance to show us what he’s about.”

Iavarone is hopeful that I Want Revenge runs well enough Saturday to be under consideration for the $750,000 Santa Anita Handicap on March 3.

I Want Revenge drew post 2 and will be ridden by Ramon Dominguez in the Evening Attire. The field includes Eighttofasttocatch, Jimanator, Day of Destiny, Thunder Ball, and Redding Colliery.