Nu What's New could put DiVito on path to first Breeders' Cup
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Arlington Park, Detroit Race Course, Great Lakes Downs, Hawthorne, Hialeah, Hoosier Park, Sportsman’s Park – you know a trainer has been around the block when seven tracks at which they raced have faded into an eternal string of dark days.
And yet, in some sense, things never have looked brighter for Jimmy DiVito. He trains the 2-year-old colt Mid American, who won the $750,000 Kentucky Downs Juvenile Sprint on Aug. 29. He trains 2-year-old Balloteer, a June 12 Churchill maiden winner with an 84 Beyer Speed Figure, sidelined in Florida for now, but a big hope for 2027. And DiVito trains the 4-year-old gelding Nu What’s New, who starts Saturday at Churchill in the Grade 3, $400,000 Ack Ack Stakes. If he runs to expectations, Nu What’s New could take DiVito to his first Breeders’ Cup.
Nu What’s New has few peers as a dirt miler. He’s 3 for 3 at the distance, with wins in a maiden race and the Oaklawn Mile going two turns, and on June 28 at Churchill in the Hanshin, a one-turn mile. By June 29, DiVito had formed a plan: Rest during the heat of the summer, come back in the one-mile Ack Ack, and hope to make the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.
“One-turn mile, same kind of race he ran last time – we wanted a fresh horse coming in. I’m very happy with the way he’s been training,” said DiVito, who trains Nu What’s New for Richard Templer’s Doubledown Stable.
DiVito, 75, was born and raised in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago and at racetracks around the country. His father, Pete, trained horses.
DiVito has seen the entire Chicago circuit turn to dust. He had to shut down his string at Hawthorne this summer . . . because the track itself shut down.
You’d think such circumstances, especially for a 50-year veteran, would lay a stable low, and in one sense, it has. DiVito enters this weekend with nine winners during 2026, on course for his lowest annual win total since 2001. He also has $1.5 million in stable earnings – a career best.
Nu What’s New might already be the best he’s trained. The gelding, by Munnings, came to the 2025-26 Oaklawn meet a five-race maiden before his form exploded. He won maiden and allowance races with triple-digit Beyers, and in his stakes debut, the Grade 3 Razorback over 1 1/16 miles, he set the pace and went head-to-head with Magnitude from the five-sixteenths pole to past the furlong grounds. Magnitude next out beat Forever Young in the Dubai World Cup.
Nu What’s New ran lights-out in the Hanshin, laying down splits that produced off-the-charts early and middle pace figures, yet he had plenty in the tank to hold clear his Ack Ack rival Owen Almighty, who returned to win the $200,000 Cowboy Jones at Ellis but could not pass Nu What’s New even on the Hanshin gallop-out.
Plenty of serious pace players populate the Ack Ack, but Nu What’s New drew outside all seven of his rivals, a perfect spot for jockey Luis Saez to dole out his mount’s capacious speed while keeping him in the clear.
Bishops Bay, with a sparkling 17-10-5-0 record, heads the competition as the 9-5 morning-line favorite. The 6-year-old was good from his very first start, in February 2023, and, like Nu What’s New, is a true dirt miler. He defeated Chunk of Gold – favored later on the Saturday card in the $500,000 Lukas Classic – last month in the Iselin at Monmouth and hit a career peak in a pair of one-turn races this past winter, a win in the Grade 2 Cigar Mile and a fourth behind Forever Young and Nysos in the Saudi Cup. Brad Cox trains Bishops Bay, and while Churchill forms the nexus of Cox’s entire operation, Bishops Bay makes his local debut. He’ll want to show speed breaking from post 4 under new rider Tyler Gaffalione.
Owen Almighty won the Cowboy Jones racing on the lead but will stalk the leaders in this speed-packed contest. He got the right pace and the right trip in the Hanshin, and that wasn’t enough to seriously threaten Nu What’s New.
East Avenue peaked beating Bishops Bay on June 13 in the Salvator Mile at Monmouth but regressed finishing a distant fourth as the Iselin favorite. Nu What’s New shows no sign of regressing, and if he keeps going that way, he’ll take DiVito to his first Breeders’ Cup.
Bourbon Flight Stakes
Local Knowledge is the fastest horse in the Bourbon Flight Stakes, and he steps down in class from the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens into listed stakes competition Saturday at Churchill Downs. Local Knowledge won the best maiden race at last fall’s Keeneland meeting, and his four Beyer Speed Figures range between 90 and 103, the mark of a serious horse.
All that, and Local Knowledge stands as the 3-1 third choice on the morning line while facing five rivals in the $300,000 Bourbon Flight. The linemaker figures those gaudy speed figures will mean less to bettors than the Bourbon Flight’s distance, 1 1/16 miles, a furlong and a half farther – and one turn more – than Local Knowledge ever has raced.
Priced at 5-2, second-choice Plutarch, for the second time in a couple of months, is entered to make his first start since winning the Robert Lewis Stakes on Feb. 8 at Santa Anita.
The 9-5 morning-line favorite? Stimulate, who makes his stakes debut and, like Local Knowledge, never has tried two turns.
Stimulate, though, has star potential. He’s the third foal to race out of the mare Elate, who won two Grade 1s and just missed in four others, and who ended her career with a respectable fourth facing males in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Bill Mott trained Elate for Adele Dilschneider and Claiborne Farm, and he trains Stimulate for them, too. The colt looks dead ready for his first foray into stakes competition and should relish added ground and an additional turn Saturday.
Stimulate raced once as a 2-year-old, finishing fifth while beaten 10 lengths in a Saratoga maiden sprint, but don’t stop the video replay at the finish. A horse comes flying past everyone on the gallop-out – that’s Stimulate.
Stimulate worked back twice shortly after his debut, and worked once in November, but then went dark until this past May 17. He has not missed a beat since, and Mott thought enough of the once-started 3-year-old to work him with the Grade 1-class older horse Baeza on June 20. Stimulate was much the best over seven furlongs in his July 18 comeback run, won comfortably Aug. 22 going a 1 1/2-turn mile in first-level allowance company, and figures prominent from the start Saturday under Luis Saez.
Local Knowledge has not shown obvious signs that he’s looking for two turns, while trainer Bob Baffert scratched Plutarch from an intended comeback run Aug. 9 in the Ellis Park Derby. Plutarch’s Southern California form has not aged especially well – and Stimulate only figures to get better with age.
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