BALTIMORE _ Angelo Lorenzo had a love affair with horse racing. Belmont Park was only a few miles from his Franklin Square home, and he would get there whenever he could. Often he'd bring along his daughter MaryEllen, who loved her daddy time at the track.
Angelo was a recreational bettor who would bet two or four dollars on a race. For him, it wasn't about the money. The overpowering lure was the beauty, power and grace of the thoroughbred and the racetrack's matchless ambience.
In August he would visit Saratoga, where he was a fixture at workouts at the Oklahoma training track. "He knew all the jockeys and trainers and he would talk to them," his son-in-law Anthony Bonomo told Newsday. "Mornings at Saratoga are magical, even better than the races, and he enjoyed them so much."
In 2006, a year after Bonomo's first visit to Saratoga, he and MaryEllen bought two thoroughbreds and opened Brooklyn Boyz Stables. "Once my dad gets into things, he gets into things," said their daughter, Jackie Avellino.
Nine years later, Bonomo spent $350,000 for a yearling colt whom MaryEllen would name Always Dreaming. On May 6, he dominated the Kentucky Derby, and if he wins the Preakness on Saturday, he'll be going for the Triple Crown on June 10 at MaryEllen's home track.
Victory at Pimlico would fulfill the promise MaryEllen made in the Derby winner's circle to a Churchill Downs crowd of 155,070 and tens of millions of NBC viewers. "So now I'm going to be dreaming about the Preakness," she said in a pronounced Long Island accent, "and then I'm going to bring it to Elmont to win the Belmont."
It would have been the thrill of a lifetime for Angelo to see the girl he introduced to racing in her glory and on top of the world. Unfortunately, he died about three years ago.
"He was a great guy, and he always treated me like a son," Anthony Bonomo said. "So I'm kind of melancholy, because I wish he could have seen this. It would have been very special."
Angelo didn't witness the crowning achievement of the passion he transmitted to MaryEllen, but indirectly it was about him, too. "My mom always loved Belmont," Jackie said, and it was MaryEllen who convinced Anthony to finally go to Saratoga. "She used to say to me, 'It's so beautiful up there, you're going to love it,' " Bonomo said. He wasn't so sure.
"I was not a real racehorse person," he said. "I liked going to the track and betting a few bucks when I was growing up. I never thought about going to Saratoga then, and I never thought about buying a racehorse."
Bonomo was a working-class kid who grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. "We were living in Franklin Square in 2005, and for a boy from Brooklyn, that was the country to me," he said in an accent that echoes the old neighborhood. "So for me, Saratoga was amazing. I'd never seen anything like it.
"A year later, we bought our first horses, and we liked Saratoga so much we bought a house up there. It's a beautiful place."
That's where Always Dreaming took the Bonomos and their partners on Derby Day. Now the colt Anthony Bonomo Jr., 29, helped pick out is heavily favored to take the Preakness.
"Racing for us has always been a family affair," said Anthony Sr., who recently moved with MaryEllen from Manhasset to Woodbury to be closer to Jackie, 26, and her sister, Julie, 28. "When you can sit down with your family and spend time talking about something all of you love, it can't get any better."
