Restauranter enjoying a delicious run

Nutley natives and residents watching the Belmont or Haskell Stakes might have found themselves rooting for eventual winner Dornoch because of the maroon and gray colors he wore.

The racing colors were in fact a tribute to Nutley High School, where the horse’s owner, Vito Cucci, went to school and played on the football team.

One of the owners of Nanina’s in the Park in Belleville, Cucci is having a great summer.

“It’s been some run,” said Vito Cucci, who breeds and races horses and owns Dornoch, the winner of the Belmont Stakes and the Haskell Stakes. Dornoch was next scheduled to run in the Breeders Cup on Nov. 1 at Del Mar in San Diego, before moving into retirement as a stud.

Cucci is a Nutley native and owns Nanina’s with two other Nutley guys; brothers Barry and Joe Maurillo. Together, they have four sons, three of whom are Nutley High School graduates, working in the business.

In addition to Nanina’s in the Park in Belleville, the partners own Chateau Grande Hotel in East Brunswick, Park Chateau Estate & Gardens in East Brunswick and The Park Savoy in Florham Park.

“Their sites are historic places that have been renovated at great expense and brought back to their original opulent glory,” said Karen J. Irvine, his publicist. “Their efforts have saved these mansions from the wrecking ball to preserve a bit of New Jersey’s rich history.”

Cucci grew up in the restaurant business; his family owned Cucci’s in West Orange until it closed in 1990. He started working there full time while he was in college after his father got sick.

“I hooked up with my current partners, who are both from Nutley, when they came to me with an opportunity,” Cucci said. “Barry was my contemporary, we were really good friends from fourth grade. They had come to me with an opportunity. They were proficient in the nightclub business. I was proficient in the catering part of it. They had asked me to join them in a venture.”

Together, they purchased Crystals, a catering facility and night club in Linden, and built from there.

“Then we bought Nanina’s in the Park in 2002, Savoy in 2011, Chateau in 2016 and the hotel we built in 2020,” Cucci said.

The group purchased Nanina from the daughter of the original owner.

“They had a long history,” Cucci said. “I think they started in 1956, they were very picky people. They were very careful on who they turned it over to.”

Simultaneous to the growth of the business, Cucci’s involvement in horse racing was growing.

“I was always interested in thoroughbreds but when the Meadowlands opened, my brother in law Joe Fusaro was a trainer. I had a casual conversation with him one day; I said ‘I’d love to get in the game if you can find a horse’ and he did.”

The horse, a pacer, turned out to be a really good horse, earning $400,000.

Cucci’s interests expanded and eventually he opened Belmar Racing and Breeding, where among others he bred the 2022 Hambletonian winner.

“I started in, concentrating on the standardbred business, trotters, I always loved the trotters,” Cucci said. “I raced and bred trotters up until I got into the thoroughbreds, which was like 2017.

Cucci’s stable bred the 2022 Hambletonian winner Cool Papa Bell.

“I own the mare, and I picked the stallion she would be bred to. I raised him at a farm in New Jersey,” Cucci said. “When I breed, I don’t breed to keep them, I breed to sell
at the yearling sale.”

Cucci had been looking at some thoroughbreds when he got a call from horse trainer Danny Gargan, who had just bought Dornoch and was looking for financing.
“He asked if I wanted 25 percent,” Cucci said. “Danny went out that night and met Jayson in a bar and asked if he was interested.”

Jayson is Jayson Werth, who played 15 years of Major League Baseball and won a World Series with the Philadelphia Phillies. Werth, who owns 10 percent of the horse, was known for, among other things, his long hair which he did not want to cut for superstitious reasons.

Other owners include New Jersey Native Randy Hill, who owns 29 percent, Mark Pine, who owns 5 percent, and Georgia-based West Paces Races, which owns 32 percent.

“People say to me Jayson gets all the attention but I say he is a great ambassador for the sport,” Cucci said. “He made a great statement, that winning the Belmont was as good as winning the World Series.”

Cucci believes Dornoch could have been a triple crown winner if he had gotten a better post position in the Kentucky Derby. Dornoch got the number one position, closes to the rail, and no horse has won the derby from that position since 1986.

The derby is unlike another race, Cucci said. “Twenty horses, and if you are in the post, they are all bearing down on you. Our jockey got off the horse and said ‘Don’t worry we will win the Belmont.”

Dornoch didn’t run in the Preakness but won the Belmont Stakes, winning $2 million.

The race, the third oldest in the country dating to 1867, was held at Saratoga Race Course this year because Belmont Park is undergoing a renovation.

Dornoch’s win took place on June 8, before a crowd of 50,000. Dornoch was 17-1 in the race, earning $37.40 for a $2 win wager.

The Triple Crown is a series of three races for three-year-olds: Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes.

Next up for Dornoch was the Haskell Invitational Stakes at Monmouth Park, which is one of the top 10 most prestigious races in the country with a $1 million prize.

“To win in my home state at the track where I used to go as a kid is just incredible,” said Cucci. “There are 17,000 foals born each year; to own a Grade 1 champion is nearly a miracle.”

Next up for Dornoch is the Travers in Saratoga in August with a prize of $1.25 million, and then the Breeders Cup with a purse of $7 million.

“That will be his last race. After that, we have to turn him over to a breeding farm,” Cucci said. “He is so well bred, and formed. In 2023, his brother won the Kentucky Derby. A horse like that, they don’t race, they are too valuable. It’s going to be heart breaking after the Breeders Cup.

Cucci, who is 68, said he personally doesn’t plan to quit. I could never retire,” he said. “I can’t do that.”

  Belleville, Dornoch, Nanina’s In The Park, Nutley