With Two Phil's, North Barrington trainer Rivelli takes aim at his first Kentucky Derby
LARRY RIVELLI SAYS HE STILL gets misty-eyed when he drives past Arlington Park.
He has every right to.
The 51-year-old North Barrington resident won nine training titles at the local oval, including the final eight (2014-21).
"Sometimes, I cry," Rivelli says, summoning the same theatrics-on-call that enabled him to shake his 9-year-old moneymaker as a dancing extra in the 1980 John Belushi/Dan Aykroyd production of "The Blues Brothers."
For the next two weeks, barring mishap, please hold all tears.
That's because if all goes as planned, Rivelli will be saddling his first Kentucky Derby starter at Churchill Downs on Saturday, May 6.
The colt's name is Two Phil's. According to Jerry Bailey - the Hall of Fame jockey and superb NBC racing analyst - he has "a puncher's chance" in the 149th Run for the Roses.
"We plan on being there and the horse belongs, so we've got a shot," Rivelli says. "What more can you ask for?"
Not much.
And tears of lament are unlikely.
•••
Rivelli's pedigree to the game runs deep.
Grandfather Pete DiVito was a training mainstay on the Chicago-Florida circuit for close to 30 years before his retirement in 1989. (He died in 1998.)
At highest flight, DiVito clients included transcontinental stars such as Harry James and Betty Grable. He was the thoroughbred trainer of record for the ill-fated candy heiress Helen Brach at the time of her disappearance in 1977.
"I think my grandfather starting taking me to his stable on the Arlington backstretch when I was about three years old," Rivelli said. "To this day, I have no greater influence in what I do."
Uncle Jimmy DiVito has been another regular on major backsides for more than 50 years.
But bloodlines are only part of all that has fueled the notable racing ascent of Rivelli.
He was a very good running back at Crystal Lake South. He was then an undersized running back at Harper Junior College and St. Cloud State. Eventually, calls to the post trumped calls to the classrooms.
"After college, I was spending my mornings on the Arlington backstretch and later in the day selling cars at a friend's lot up in Crystal Lake," Rivelli said. "I've never liked to be idle. I think part of me is OCD."
Part of him also has an amazing "people" vertical. That's why once he took out his trainer's license 24 years ago, he displayed a knack for cultivating quality - read "resourced" - clients.
He also gained valuable tips in self-promotion from senior jockey agent Tom "Captain Cranky" Morgan, once a staffer at The Detroit News.
Said Gary Duch, a past racing executive at Arlington, Hawthorne and the late Sportsman's Park: "Very simply, people like Larry. He also emerged in that gap in Chicago racing around 2005 or so when he was really the only kind of 'new blood' in town. Legends like Richard Hazelton and Harvey Vanier and J.R. Smith Sr. were either retiring or dying. Larry started to loom large."
His most fortuitous looming to some great clients was waiting up around the clubhouse turn.
•••
The Foglia family is one of the grand business and philanthropic clans on the northwest suburban landscape.
In 1971, father Vince Foglia Sr. co-founded a medical tech company called Sage Products LLC. In 2016, the Michigan-based Stryker Corporation purchased the Cary firm for a reported $2.7 billion.
That left Foglia - along with wife Pat, son Vinnie and daughter Kym - to focus more fully on The Foglia Family Foundation. Their nonprofit outreach has extended to scores of worthy causes since its establishment in 1995.
But son and mother also enjoyed some days at the races. Along the way, their stable - Patricia's Hope LLC - came to be,
And Vinnie Foglia met Larry Rivelli.
"He's the brother I never had," Rivelli said. "There was an instant connect. We're one or two years apart in age, now live near each other, golf together, go to OTBs with some other Italians, just have some very good times. The entire family has been a great blessing in my life. They're remarkable people."
Foglia Jr. also won the last seven owners championships at Arlington (2015-21). Only the mythic Frank Calabrese, with 11 won or shared between 2000-2010, had more in the new millennium.
Most importantly regarding the 2023 Kentucky Derby, Patricia's Hope LLC owns 80 percent of Two Phil's.
•••
Though the 3-year-old has never run in Illinois, its Chicago roots go well beyond the Foglia ownership.
Which also fills in where the other 20 percent of ownership lies.
Close to 10 years ago, an advertising executive named Phil Sagan of Bloomingdale wound up with a determined distaffer named Mia Torri. She won close to $315,000 during a 10-race career.
Sagan wanted to oversee her breeding. But he had no idea who to breed Mia Torri to.
Son Anthony Sagan is an accomplished poker player. One of his regular chips pals is former Chicago jock Jerry La Sala (Fenton High, Class of '78). La Sala won 1,248 races during a long career (1981-2012).
Sagan asked La Sala for advice. La Sala suggested they schedule a lunch with a fellow named Steve Leving, one of the more memorable characters of the past five decades in Chicago racing.
Leving has a swarthy look that would make him eligible to sit at the old Bruce Gordon-Frank de Kova Frank Nitti table in TV's "The Untouchables." But his knowledge of thoroughbred bloodlines can stagger. Sometimes, too much so.
"Steve is a mad genius," said Calabrese, who utilized the native South Sider as his stable manager during the glory days at Arlington. "He has a brilliant mind. But he talks too much. Ask him what time it is and he has to tell you how the watch was made."
What he told Sagan and La Sala was that their mating answer was an overlooked stallion named Hard Spun. Leving projected an appropriate blend of stamina, tactical speed and that impossibly immeasurable X-factor called "heart."
The foal looked OK. The Sagans tried to sell him twice, both times at prestigious gatherings of wealthy thoroughbred speculators. Both times they couldn't get a reserve price of $100,000.
So it was back to Leving. He suggested a meeting with his old chum Rivelli. The facile trainer liked what he heard and later saw. Foglia signed on.
Brief negotiations resulted in the 80-20 split.
Now both the Foglia and Sagan families are scheduled to be in chi-chi owners boxes at Churchill on May 6
The gathering will include the two Phils for whom the horse is named - Phil Sagan and Phil La Sala of Bensenville, the eightysomething father of the former jockey.
•••
The path of Two Phil's to The Derby has been classic Rivelli - ship 'n race, ship 'n race and then ship 'n race again.
"I guess I am known for picking spots pretty carefully," Rivelli joked. "Horse vans have never scared me, especially since my stepfather Vic (McCormack) drives a lot of the time."
In eight career starts, the colt has run at six different tracks, winning four times. The winner's circles include: Virginia's Colonial Downs, Minnesota's Canterbury Park, at a sloppy Churchill last October and then the race that catapulted him into the Derby, the $700,000 Jeff Ruby Steaks (Grade 3) at Kentucky's Turfway Park on March 29.
In the nine-furlong Ruby, under regular rider Jareth Loveberry, Two Phil's settled back easily against a relatively weak field, When asked, he "rallied with authority," according to the official chart, and blew home by 5¼ lengths.
The win gained the connections 100 points on The Derby selection scroll, assuring a spot in the starting field. Up to 19 other 3-year-olds may go, all trying one mile and one quarter for the first time.
Despite the fact the arc-altering victory of Two Phil's came on a synthetic surface (Churchill is dirt), almost all credible national observers have the colt among the top six or seven picks for the Kentucky classic.
The big horse in the race will be Todd Pletcher's imposing Forte. The two-time Derby trainers champ also has Tapit Trice and Kingsbarn way up high.
Formidable Brad Cox is slated to send Angel of Empire, Verifying and Hit Show.
Bob Baffert - who remains banned from Churchill because of a positive drug test on first-place finisher Medina Spirit in 2021 - has transferred prime contender Practical Move to Tim Yakteen.
The Japanese are given their best chance ever with Derma Sotogake, a grandson of the great Sunday Silence.
If nothing else, Two Phil's will be a solid price.
•••
The colt now awaits his Camptown close-up on the backstretch of southwest suburban Hawthorne. That's where Rivelli's entire 75-horse brigade resides.
The barn of Two Phil's is conveniently located next to a security office. The plan is to ship to Churchill next Sunday (April 30) and get in one final maintenance workout.
Last Sunday, shortly after dawn, Two Phil's was the first horse out for a morning work. In the trainer's shack, Rivelli stood with Jim Miller, a jack-of-all-trades who will assume duties as director of racing at Hawthorne on May 1.
"He looked like a champ," Miller said. "He's a good-looking horse to begin with, but he's got a champ's bearing. He came out, nodded, surveyed everything and then blew through five furlongs in a minute flat. The surface has been very good but he even seemed to have a little bit of extra glide. The clockers (Barb Poprawski and Donna Dupuy) told me the same thing."
Said Rivelli: "That's exactly what we wanted. We'd also like some rain at Churchill before The Derby. I keep hearing this (negative stuff) about the big win being on the synthetic (at Turfway). But who knows?
"We're going to the Kentucky Derby. We've won over the strip. When he hits high gear, you can feel the rumble. That Churchill stretch (a trying 1,234 feet) can be brutal. But somebody's gonna win and why can't it be us?"
Many mint juleps from Arlington, there will be no time for tears.
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.
Two Phil's: From Northwest Highway to the Kentucky Derby
149th Kentucky Derby (Grade 1) • Purse: $3 million • Saturday, May 6 • NBC
Colt: A chestnut 3-year-old from Hard Spun by Mia Torri (General Quarters)
Trainer: Larry Rivelli, nine-time Arlington Park champion
Owners: Patricia's Hope LLC (Vince Foglia Jr. of North Barrington and mother Pat Foglia, 80 percent) plus breeder Phil Sagan (20 percent)
Jockey: Jareth Loveberry
Career: 4-1-1 in eight starts ($683,450)
Breakthrough win: $700,000 Jeff Ruby Steaks (Grade 3) at Turfway Park on March 29
stabled: At Hawthorne Race Course
Named for: Breeder Phil Sagan of Bloomingdale and Phil La Sala of Bensenville, father of former Chicago-area jockey Jerry La Sala
Racing style: Reserved early, big kick, capable of sweeping drives
Questions: Can he sustain his close down the long Churchill stretch? Can anyone beat likely favorite Forte? How will Loveberry navigate a big field aboard his first Derby mount?
Potential odds: 18-1