Veteran trainer Bozzo still enjoying the game

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – At age 94, Jerry Bozzo may well be the oldest active trainer in North America. What is certain is that Bozzo will be the oldest trainer to win a stakes race at Gulfstream Park in 2014 if his homebred 3-year-old filly Flutterby can repeat her last race and defeat nine rivals in Wednesday’s $50,000 Golden Beach Handicap.

Flutterby, a daughter of Congrats, is coming off the best race of her career, a second-place finish in the one-mile Sunshine Millions Distaff Preview at Gulfstream Park West on Nov. 8. Flutterby showed the ability to rate for the first time, rallying from near the rear of the field to be beaten less than a length by Swinger’s Party.

“She has a lot of natural speed, but she will rate, as she proved last time,” said Bozzo, who has been stabled at Gulfstream Park West since the track first opened as Calder Race Course in 1971. “And although she’s done most of her racing at distances shorter than a mile, her family background has a lot of stamina in it.”

Bozzo said his main concern Wednesday isn’t that Flutterby will have to run at Gulfstream Park, where she’s been off the board in two previous starts, but the van ride over.

“The track’s not an issue, but the trip across town is,” said Bozzo. “She’s rather high-strung, but now she’s got a companion, a goat, who seems to keep her calm and will travel over with her on the van on Wednesday.”

Bozzo currently trains five horses and has no plans to call it quits.

“I’m having too much fun to stop,” said Bozzo, who retired from the glass business in 1968. “And having a filly like Flutterby helps keep me motivated to get up early and come out to the barn every morning.”

Flutterby will share the high weight of 119 pounds in the Golden Beach with Light Bringer, a stakes winner who has been idle since finishing third in the Suncoast Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs on Feb. 1. Other key contenders in the race include Wait No More, who will make her main-track debut for Wolfson if she starts; Dream Come True; and the improving U. S. S. O’Brien.