Long before Airbnb got started in 2008, trainer John Terranova and his wife, Tonja, were providing faraway accommodations for Bob Baffert's horses. For the past 23 years, the Syosset residents have been taking care of the Southern California-based trainer's shippers to Aqueduct, Saratoga and Belmont Park.
Three years ago, the Terranovas hosted Baffert's colt American Pharoah in Elmont, N.Y., before he earned the first Triple Crown since Affirmed swept the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes in 1978. This week their world-famous guest is the undefeated Justify, who late Saturday afternoon will attempt to become the 13th 3-year-old thoroughbred to win all three races. He's the 4-5 morning-line favorite in a field of 10.
The imposing chestnut colt arrived Wednesday at 2:13 p.m. at Belmont Park after a 3 {-hour journey from Kentucky. He and stablemate Restoring Hope, another Belmont Stakes runner, left Baffert's Barn 33 at Churchill Downs shortly after 8 a.m. on a van bound for Louisville International Airport, about 2 { miles away. Their Tex Utton equine charter took off at 10:39 a.m. and landed in Islip at MacArthur Airport at 12:25 p.m., 34 minutes earlier than expected.
Another van took the horses and Jimmy Barnes, Baffert's longtime assistant trainer, on the 40-mile ride along the Long Island Expressway to the Terranovas' Barn 1, about 50 yards from Hempstead Turnpike. The trip from MacArthur to Belmont took a little over an hour.
Justify will be bedded down in Stall 30, the same hay-filled enclosure where American Pharoah spent the second half of Belmont week in 2015. For the Terranovas, it's old hat and no pressure.
"This is business as usual for us," John Terranova said. "We've been friends with Bob for a long time, and we look forward to being around some rare thoroughbreds. We're all ready for Justify. Hopefully, everything will go smoothly and we'll have a lot of fun and enjoy the show."
John, 47, was born and raised in Syosset. In 1991, after moving to California to train there, he met Baffert through Tonja, who's 48. She grew up in the Golden State and "fell in love with the racetrack" at 15, starting as a groom. She knew Baffert when she was "17 or 18" back in the mid-1980s. He was still training quarter horses then, and it would be more than 10 years before his first triumph in a Triple Crown event, the 1997 Derby with Silver Charm.
