Saturday night (Oct. 5) will be one that Oakfield native Mike Caprio will never forget because he captured his career milestone 2,000th driving win with his own prized trotter BZ Glide in the featured $12,500 Brian Schroeder Memorial Trot at Batavia Downs.
After a two-month summer vacation and one qualifier back, BZ Glide left from the pylons and cut fractions of :28, :58.3 and 1:28.1 before turning for home and holding off all challengers under a line drive by Caprio to win in a season's best 1:57.4.
The win was a true family affair as BZ Glide ($5.40) is owned by the Caprio Stable and is trained by Mike Caprio's wife, Alana.
Caprio got his driver’s license in 1981 and has been competing full time ever since. His first driving successes came behind two main horses; his father Joe Caprio’s prized pacer Prosecutor and a horse he owned with his dad, Connecticut Glove.
Prosecutor (Flying Bret-Chuck’s Maid 1:59.3, $104,902) was a 58-time winner lifetime and a top-class pacer in Western New York for many years, winning 39 of those races on that circuit with the younger Caprio at the lines.
Connecticut Glove (Bullet Hanover-Congress Glove 2:00.3, $211,261) was a hard-knocking overnighter who won 43 races lifetime, 20 of which had Caprio in tow.
Since the early years Caprio has owned 57 horses and had much success with many of them, but the one that stands out as the shining star of his career was his 2,000th winning drive, BZ Glide.
BZ Glide (Yankee Glide-Bloomer Zoomer 1:56.1, $339,847) was purchased as a 2-year-old by Caprio and his wife Alana and they developed him into one of the best Open class trotters to ever compete in Western New York. Now 10-years-old, BZ Glide has won 45 races with Caprio at the helm and has been the cornerstone of their operation during that time.
Caprio has also been responsible for much of the driving success of another Western New York 56-time winning star, Fireyourguns (American Ideal-Villa Hanover 1:47.3, $406,886) who is trained by Terence Mc CLory.
Besides driving his own horses, Caprio has always been a very popular catch driver throughout his career. As a result he has scored 2,000 wins out of 14,904 starts with 1,829 seconds and 1,839 thirds and has earnings of $4,942,824. His highest earnings year was 1989 ($251,170) and he scored his most wins in 1988 (129).
